We study the regularity of the bilinear maximal operator when applied to Sobolev functions, proving that it maps $W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}) \times W^{1,q}(\mathbb{R}) \to W^{1,r}(\mathbb{R})$ with $1 1$. We also investigate the almost everywhere and weak convergence under the action of the classical Hardy-Littlewood maximal operator, both in its global and local versions.

10 pages