WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre Report 2023
Jane Lambert About 30 years ago, I attended a workshop on the arbitration of intellectual property disputes. The speakers included Dr Francis Gurry and His Honour Peter Ford. At that time, Dr Gurry was an Australian academic who had written a rather good book on the law of confidence . He went on to become Director-General of the WIPO. Peter Ford was the first judge of the Patents County Court which was the predecessor to the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court ("IPEC"). Two alternative dispute resolution services were set up as a result of that workshop. One was an arbitration and mediation panel attached to the Patents County Court under the leadership of Prof. Bryan Niblett. I was a founder member. I am not sure whether we ever had a case, Certainly, nothing was referred to me and the panel was disbanded after a few years. The other was the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO") Arbitration and Mediation Centre which offers arbitration,