Mark E. Foster

Mr. Foster has practiced law in his own private practice (with offices in Silicon Valley, Research Triangle N.C., and Tokyo); in the Federal government; and as Chief Legal Counsel to several publicly traded and private companies.

Foster currently advises companies including www.PixoVR.com, www.SafeinHome.com, www.NorthPlate.com and VolumetricsMedical.com on corporate, commercial, IP, financing, and Board matters.

Mr. Foster served as General Counsel, Secretary, Chief Financial Officer, and Chairman of Japan and UK subsidiaries for Natus Medical, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTUS), during its IPO and thereafter. Natus invented newborn baby hearing screening, now mandated worldwide in neonatal care.

Mr. Foster served from 2005-2016 as President, Chief Legal Counsel and Chief Financial Officer of Volumetrics Medical Imaging, LLC, a Duke University Medical & Engineering School spinoff that invented the modern 4D/real-time 3D ultrasound machine that displays, for instance, a heart beating or a fetus moving.  Mr. Foster successfully led enforcement by Volumetrics of its fundamental patents covering real-time 3D/4D ultrasound imaging, the largest patent enforcement campaign to date in the medical device sector.  Foster led a legal team in the US, Japan, Germany, Korea and Austria, successfully licensing Volumetrics' ultrasound patents to Philips, GE, Siemens, Samsung and Toshiba, thereby affirming Professors Olaf von Ramm and Stephen Smith of Duke University as inventors of the modern ultrasound machine.

He has lectured in international business at the University of Southern California, and on US Law at Nihon University iand International Christian University n Japan. Mr. Foster served as President of the Trustees of the UC Hastings College of Law 1066 Foundation.

Early in his career, Mr. Foster was appointed Special Counsel to the United States Embassy, Tokyo, Japan by President Reagan's Secretary of Commerce, Malcolm Baldrige. Mr. Foster served as Tokyo-based US trade negotiator from 1984-88 during the "trade war" between Japan and the United States. Mr. Foster subsequently served as Lawyer and Lobbyist in Japan for the US Electronic Industries Association, the first ever full-time US business lobbyist in Japan. Foster was appointed to several Japanese Government Planning Councils on high technology standards, the first ever non-Japanese on those Councils.

Foster was described by the Wall Street Journal as "That rarest of specimens, a full-time lobbyist for American business in Japan."

Mr Foster received Executive Branch appointments from Presidents H.W. Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush and Obama, serving as security-cleared advisor to the United States Trade Representative representing the US high technology sector on U.S. international trade policy. Holding a federal security clearance, Mr. Foster has served as liason member of US delegations during WTO, NAFTA and Korea FTA negotiations.

Because of his work on international and transnational public and private law, legal education and reform, he was nominated to ALI by Mary Kay Kane, ALI Council Member and Chancellor and Dean Emerita of the University of California, Hastings School of Law, as well as United States Attorney General Richard Thornburgh.

During 2009-10, Mr. Foster helped plan, and directed, "The Southern Key Economic Zone Development Project" in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the largest infrastructure development project undertaken to date in that region, towards development of highway, rail, port and telecommunications systems. The Project was a collaboration of the U.S., EU, ASEAN, Japan, Singapore and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Mr. Foster currently advises companies on legal, business and finance matters including corporate governance, IP strategy, litigation management, dispute mediation and resolution. He advises high technology companies in the medical device, virtual reality, semiconductor and other sectors.