ADR Advocacy, Strategies, and Practice for Intellectual Property Cases

Considering the large number of intellectual property cases that settle and the financial and business risks thereby avoided, specialized knowledge and experience in the practice of ADR is a must. Even the most experienced attorneys need to possess critical core competencies for representing clients in ADR processes, negotiating agreements with pre-dispute resolution clauses, and counseling clients about ADR. However, there is no one source of education or training to accomplish this within the area of intellectual property law. This book provides a must-have resource, providing strategies, skills and practical expertise to best apply ADR in the simplest to most complex IP case that you and your clients regularly encounter.

Intended as a practical resource for lawyers and business executives who need the understand alternative processes to litigation and how they can be used, this book offers collected wisdom from current or former jurists, neutrals, clients, professors, trial and transactional attorneys, and in-house counsel. With this wide-ranging expertise, the chapter authors consider all relevant perspectives in the ADR process: the attorney, the client, and the neutral.

The book begins with an overview of the practical uses of ADR in IP cases, including the skills that should be developed to be an effective advocate representing your client in the ADR process. Subsequent chapters focus on specific elements of employing ADR in the intellectual property legal arena, including:

• Drafting pre-dispute ADR provisions in IP agreements
• Early case assessment analysis in order to better manage a dispute
• Mediation, how to prepare for it and how to be an effective advocate in the process
• Using a special master
• Tools to use to evaluate options for resolving disputes, select neutrals, convey information to foster communication, determine division of property, and facilitate settlement negotiations
• Mediating patent cases in the Federal Circuit's mediation program
• The strategic use of the U.S. International Trade Commission for enforcing and resolving IP disputes

An especially practical chapter, "Tools Useful to Persuade, Evaluate, and Communicate in ADR Proceedings", discusses the tools that attorneys and mediators can use to screen disputes for ADR and select neutrals; evaluate options for resolving disputes; convey information to foster communication and persuade; mathematically determine division of property; and facilitate settlement negotiations.