BACKGROUND

Professor Olson is an assistant professor at Boston College Law School. He teaches patents, intellectual property, and antitrust law. Professor Olson researches and writes primarily in the areas of patent law and copyright. Professor Olson came to Boston College from Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, where he researched in patent law and litigated copyright fair use impact cases.

Before entering academia, Professor Olson practiced as a patent litigator at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Professor Olson clerked for Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.


EDUCATION

B.A., University of Kansas; J.D., Harvard University.

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Works in Progress: 

Empirical Study of Concurrent Invention by Industry
Collecting and analyzing data from patent litigation and interference cases finding invalidity under §102(a) to determine the time lag between first and second instances of identical invention, and how this varies by industry.


Presentations:

Presented paper: First Amendment Challenges to Copyright Laws, Boston College Law Review Symposium: Intellectual Property and the First Amendment, April 3, 2009.

Presented paper: Toward a First Amendment Based Copyright Misuse to Faculty of University of Cincinnati Law School, February 6, 2009.

Presented paper: First Amendment Challenges to Copyright at Works-in-Progress Intellectual Property Colloquium 2008, hosted by Tulane Law School, October 3-4, 2008.

Presented: Some Effects of Earnings Statements, Advertising, Insurance and Patent Law on Drug Development and Marketing, hosted by Boston College Law School Intellectual Property Technology Forum. January 29, 2009.

Panelist, Patent Law Double Feature: Declaratory Judgments in Patent Cases after MedImmune and New Local Rule 16.6, Social Law Library, John Adams Courthouse, Boston. Sponsored by The Social Law Library, Boston Patent Law Association, and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. January 27, 2009. Program Website.

Panel Participant for Boston Patent Law Association Corporate Practice Committee Presentation: Does Your Intellectual Property Need Protecting After Quanta v. LG Electronics? December 16, 2008. Program Website.

Presented: Intellectual Property Issues in Health Care, hosted by Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Boston, Massachusetts. December 4, 2008.

Presented paper: First Amendment Challenges to Copyright at the 8th Annual Intellectual Property Scholars Conference, hosted by Stanford Law School, August 7-8, 2008. Program Website.

Presented Paper: Towards a First Amendment Foundation for Copyright Misuse at Works-in-Progress Intellectual Property Colloquium 2007, hosted by American University Washington College of Law, Sept. 28-29, 2007. Program website.

Speaker, 7th Annual Intellectual Property Scholars Conference, hosted by DePaul University College of Law, August 9-10, 2007 (Presenting Towards a First Amendment Foundation for Copyright Misuse).  Program website.

Invited Speaker, The 2007 North American James Joyce Conference, The University of Texas at Austin, June 13-17, 2007 (Presenting Shloss v. Joyce and the Case for Expanded Copyright Misuse).  Program website.

Invited Commentator, Workshop on Commons Theory for Young Scholars, Sponsored by the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods and the Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School, Bonn, Germany, May 7-9, 2007. Program website.

Participant, The Seventeenth Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, Montreal, Canada, May 1-4, 2007.  Program website.

Invited Speaker, State of Play Academy, October 10, 2006 (Presented Patentable Subject Matter: The Problem of the Absent Gatekeeper in the virtual world of There.com).  Program website.

Other Activities: 
Non-resident fellow, Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society.

COURSES

Fall 2011: Intellectual Property Survey; Philosophy of Law: Past & Future
Spring 2012: Antitrust Law 

PUBLICATIONS

"A Legitimate Interest in Promoting the Progress of Science: Constitutional Constraints on Copyright Laws." Vanderbilt Law Review En Banc 64 (2011): 185-198.

"First Amendment Based Copyright Misuse."William and Mary Law Review 52, no.2 (November 2010): 537-606.

"First Amendment Interests and Copyright Accommodations." Boston College Law Review  50 (2009): 1393-1423.

"Taking the Utilitarian Basis for Patent Law Seriously: The Case for Restricting Patentable Subject Matter." Temple Law Review 82 (2009): 181-240.