This piece deals with the recently established Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). It addresses some key concerns surrounding the risk of unenforceability of PMAC arbitral awards and proposes three viable solutions. As of 1 June 2023, the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPC Agreement) has entered into…

As part of the second annual California International Arbitration Week, KCAB and LimNexus hosted an expert panel on the arbitration of international patent disputes. This post presents some highlights from the panel. The panel was moderated by Steve Kim who currently serves as Secretary-General of KCAB International and included as speakers Conna Weiner (Arbitrator &…

As noted in GAR’s Guide to IP Arbitration, “one of the noticeable trends in international arbitration in the past several years has been the growing use of arbitration to resolve IP-related disputes.”  The World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) Arbitration and Mediation Center reports that its filings (arbitration, mediation and expert determination) increased by over 15%…

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, pharmaceutical companies have engaged in a highly competitive and risky vaccine race. In less than 10 months from the declaration of the global pandemic, the vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech received its first regulatory approval, followed by the success stories of other companies. The swiftness of these results was praised as “unprecedented”…

International background on IP arbitration The past decade has witnessed a substantial growth in the use of arbitration to solve Intellectual Property (“IP”) disputes. To the day, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (“WIPO Center”) has administered over 650 arbitration, mediation and expert determination cases, a number which grows faster every year, as portrayed by…