Internatio​nal Survey on Dispute Resolution in Technology Transactio​ns

The Report presenting the Results of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center International Survey on Dispute Resolution in Technology Transactions is available at: http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/center/survey/results.html

The Survey was developed with the support of a number of associations in the area of intellectual property, including the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI), the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), the Fédération Internationale des Conseils en Propriété Industrielle (FICPI) and the Licensing Executives Society International (LESI) and the help of the WIPO Economics and Statistics Division.

The Survey was distributed to companies, research organizations, universities, government bodies, law firms, individuals and other entities involved in technology licensing and technology disputes.

The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center received 393 responses from Respondents based in 62 countries. In addition to completing the Survey, 63 Respondents gave telephone interviews. Ranging from entities of 1-10 employees to entities of more than 10,000, Respondents are active in different business areas, including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, IT, electronics, telecom, life sciences, chemicals, consumer goods and mechanical.

At pages 3 to 7, the Report provides an Executive Summary of core findings. To highlight just some of these:

- Cost and time are the two principal party concerns in negotiating dispute resolution clauses.

- Court litigation was the most common stand-alone clause (32%) included, followed by (expedited) arbitration (30%) and mediation (12%). Mediation was also included where parties used multi-tier clauses (a further 17% of all clauses).

- Disputes were resolved, in that order, through court litigation, arbitration, mediation, expedited arbitration and expert determination.

- Respondents incurred significantly higher costs and spent more time in court proceedings than in arbitration or mediation.

The Report (Chart 11, page 22) contains positive mention of the comparative use of WIPO clauses in technology agreements. - WIPO