WIPO Workshop for Mediators in Intellectual Property Disputes
May 28 and 29, 2009
This Workshop will consist of an intensive two-day training course in the techniques of mediation. The Workshop will be based on simulated mediation exercises in the intellectual property field. Participants will be expected to take active part in the exercises, which will be carried out in small groups.
Professionals from many different jurisdictions have already participated in the Workshops for Mediators in Intellectual Property Disputes organized by the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. These Workshops are designed for lawyers, business executives, patent and trademark attorneys and others wishing to familiarize themselves with the mediation process and to receive training as mediators.
Mediation is an extension of direct negotiations between the parties to a dispute, conducted with the aid of a neutral intermediary, the mediator. It is the preferred mode of dispute resolution in many of the most important markets of Asia, as well as an increasingly popular method of dispute settlement in the United States of America and in Europe. Many, although not all, intellectual property disputes have characteristics that favor the use of mediation. Where such disputes arise in the context of an existing business relationship, such as that created by a license, franchise, distributorship, research and development contract, manufacturing arrangement, or publishing, sound recording or film production contract, mediation offers a non-confrontational procedure for dispute resolution, which can be conducive to the maintenance or further development of the business relationship.
Realizing that mediation is low-risk and cost-effective, parties are increasingly agreeing to make referral to arbitration or court litigation conditional on having previously attempted to resolve their dispute by means of mediation. In a parallel development, many states require that disputes be submitted to mediation before access to courts is granted.
Instructors
Professor Robert H. Mnookin, Samuel Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Professor Mnookin joined the Harvard Law School in 1993 after over twenty years on the Faculties of Stanford Law School and the University of California, Berkeley, Law School, and clerking with Judge Carl McGowan and Justice Harlan. He teaches and writes in the areas of dispute resolution. Professor Mnookin has applied his interdisciplinary approach in conflict resolution to a number of commercial disputes. He served, for example, as an arbitrator from 1985 to 1997 in a landmark dispute between IBM and Fujitsu concerning operating systems software. He has written numerous articles and eight books, including Beyond Winning: Negotiating to Create Value in Deals and Disputes and Barriers to Conflict Resolution, each of which won the Book Prize from the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution.
Professor Gary J. Friedman is the founder and director of The Center for Mediation in Law in Mill Valley, California. He is also co-founder and board member of the Center for Law and Human Values in New York City. He has practiced law since 1970, serving, since 1976, primarily as a mediator of commercial and family disputes with Mediation Law Offices in Mill Valley. He has conducted introductory, intermediate and advanced training programs in mediation and mediative approaches to the practice of law throughout the United States since 1979, and in Europe since 1989. Author of numerous publications on mediation, Professor Friedman has taught negotiation and mediation at various law schools and continuing legal education programs throughout the United States including, more recently, through the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation. He is the author of numerous publications, including a forthcoming book entitled Challenging Conflict: the Understanding-based Model of Mediation, to be published by the American Bar Association in cooperation with the Harvard Program on Negotiation.
Registration and Further Information
Those wishing to pre-register are requested to send an email to arbiter.meetings@wipo.int from which further information (including, on request, references to past participants) may also be obtained.
