American Mediation System Of Patent Disputes And Its Enlightenment To China

Intellectual property is a kind of intangible property rights and spiritual resourcesof creative intellectual effort. With the rapid development of information technologyand the age of knowledge economy’ coming, patent right as one of the intellectualproperty rights is becoming more and more influential. The consequence is theincreasing number of patent disputes, and the form of litigation is obviously difficultto fit patent disputes’ settlement. In this situation, the United States graduallyestablished the Alternative Dispute Resolution. Mediation is one of the most widelyused approaches of ADR. Mediation can not only ease the tension of judicialresources, and also help the opposing sides to seek common interests, maintain a goodrelationship, and even create more opportunities for development. Convenience,speediness and efficiency are the value which every patentee pursues. Avoidingformalism, using the simplified procedure to resolve patent disputes in a short periodof time, is particularly important for the achievement of patent rights. Thecharacteristics of mediation make the parties put more resources into the normalproduction and operation. Most mediation of patent disputes in America proceeds innon-profit civil mediation institutions, their professional abilities can help the partiesget a better communication and provide settlements for patent disputes. In recentyears, China’s civil mediation system has taken into account, but the mediation ofpatent disputes are still in the beginning and exploring stage, the way of mediation isnot widely used, and the advantages of mediation did not work out. Therefore, it isnecessary to make our mediation of patent disputes more professional and efficient,based on the characteristics of our own and the experience of the United States. Onthat account, my paper first introduced the history, the relevant legislation, theprinciples and the procedures of patent disputes’ mediation system in United States,and analyzed the advantages and necessity of the mediation of patent disputes. Thendiscussed the current problems of China’s patent disputes’ resolution by consider theactuality. At last, I tried to make some suggestions for building mediation system ofpatent disputes in China, from three aspects: institutions, principles and procedures.