NIPC News

Jane Lambert "Litigation should be a last resort" begins para 8 of Practice Direction - Pre-Action Conduct and Protocols which both sides to a dispute are required to follow. The paragraph continues: "As part of a relevant pre-action protocol or this Practice Direction, the parties should consider whether negotiation or some other form of ADR might enable them to settle their dispute without commencing proceedings."  The obligation to consider ways of settling a dispute is not a once-and-for-all step but continues even after a claim form has been issued. What Paragraph 8 means in Practice When I read that paragraph to clients they often have three questions: What is meant by "ADR"? How do I get some of this ADR? and What happens if I don't consider ADR? What is meant by ADR? "ADR" stands for "alternative dispute resolution" which is defined in the Glossary to the Civil Procedure Rules as "Col...

Jane Lambert First Published 2 Nov 2011 JD Supra, Revised 30 Jan 2017 Essentially, there are two ways of resolving any kind of dispute: the parties can agree to settle; or  a third party, such as a judge, arbitrator or hearing officer , imposes a settlement on them.  They are not mutually exclusive. Some issues in a dispute may be settled by one method while other issues may be settled by another. Agreed Settlement There are two routes to an agreed settlement: Direct negotiation between the parties; or Mediation, that is to say, negotiation facilitated by a third party known as “a mediator”. There are also two negotiation strategies, namely positional and principled negotiation. Mediation developed out of principled negotiation. Direct Negotiation P ositional Negotiation:   The parties bargain. One side begins by demanding more than it expects to get while the other offers less than it expects to give. In subsequent exchanges, the pa...

WIPO head office, Geneva Author Melatron Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence Source Wikipedia Jane Lambert In my experience as a domain name dispute resolution panellist for the WIPO as well as a member of the Bar who has advised and settled pleadings for both complainants and respondents, most domain name disputes are straightforward. Moreover, most complaints are decided in favour of the complainant.  Of all the cases that have been referred to WIPO since 1999, some 21,399 or nearly 86.0% have resulted in a transfer to the complainant and 407 or 1.6% in a cancellation. A complaint has been denied in only 3,086 cases making 12.4% of the total (see  Case Outcome (Consolidated): All Years   on the WIPO website). Those figures are hardly surprising as it is rare for a complaint to be defended and even rarer for a response to disclose any merit. It can therefore be said with some confidence that most panellists' decisions are likel...

Jane Lambert On the 25 Sept 2013 I led a seminar on the law relating to branding at 4-5 Gray's Inn Square. This was part of an introductory course on IP law which started with the Introduction to IP Law on 26 June 2913. The slides and notes from that talk can be read and downloaded from my post "Introduction to IP Law " on 1 July 2013. Although I gave my talk without slides I have produced a set for the benefit of those who were not there and you can read and download them here: Introduction to brands from Jane Lambert I also gave each attendee a set of notes and a memory stick which you will find here:   Introduction to the law relating to branding from Jane Lambert The next talks in the series will be on Creative Output - Copyright and Related Rights  which will take place at 4-5 Gray's Inn Square on 30 Oct 2013 between 16:00 and 18:00 and Technology - Patents, Trade Secrets, Design Rights, Plant Varieties etc  on 27 No...

Jane Lambert On Monday 15 April, 2013 I chaired a meeting of the monthly arbitration forum of the Irish branch of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators . The topic was "WIPO Arbitration: Current Trends with Intellectual Property and Domain Name Disputes." The speakers were my colleague, Joseph Dalby of the 4-5 Gray's Inn Square Intellectual Property and Technology Law Group and Kate Colleary , Head of Intellectual Property and Data Protection at the Dublin office of Eversheds . The meeting took place at the Dublin Dispute Resolution Centre  which is a joint venture of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the Irish Bar . It is in the Distillery Building in Church Street, a few hundred yards from the Four Courts where the superior courts sit.  According to the Centre's website: "The centre has four rooms designed specifically for holding arbitrations, in addition to five ancillary breakout / meeting rooms. All rooms have power and data dir...