Morrison & Foerster has the largest dispute resolution team in Japan among international firms with over 30 dedicated litigators on the ground. The firm is particularly strong in intellectual property and commercial disputes, including international arbitration, construction and consumer class action disputes. It also has internal investigation expertise covering product mislabelling, construction defects and white-collar crime.
One of the firm’s key individuals is Louise Stoupe, who has particular strength in international arbitration and litigation. She is known to represent some of the biggest technology companies in the world in their complex commercial disputes. Robert Hollingshead and Max Olson are well-known IP practitioners. Other names to note include Chie Yakura and Yukihiro Terazawa.
Among the IP disputes, the team, led by partner Olson, settled a patent infringement action that the team had filed for JOLED against Samsung Electronics and Samsung Display in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas. The five patents in suit covered fundamental OLED display technology and the accused products included Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones.
In an ongoing IP matter, the team is representing Socionext and Socionext America in an International Trade Commission investigation that involves alleged infringement of a patent asserted by Bell Semiconductor against over 20 respondents including Socionext. The firm is also defending Socionext America in a related patent infringement action pending in the US District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan.
Key clients of the firm include Cadence Design Systems, Chugai Pharmaceutical, Denso Ten, Fujitsu America, Fujitsu Client Computing and Fujitsu Semiconductor.