Mediation for Intellectual Property, Entertainment, Business, Negotiations and Dispute Resolution
Or, How to Win-Win

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We provide arbitration and mediation services for parties by bringing our years of experience in business, licensing, contracts, litigation and Appeals to the ADR process.

Pre-Contract Negotiation & Coordination

Mediation Services are not new but their application to resolve disputes has generally been resolution of filed litigation.  One often overlooked use for mediation is pre-contract negotiation especially when there are many parties and coordination is needed.  This occurs frequently in film, music, e-commerce and other complex matters where the parties need to use a facilitator to work out all the details.  This type of mediation can save miles of film, actor time, resources and lead to fewer disputes.   In Entertainment, the long term of many film and music projects and the complexity of keeping everything moving smoothly can cause trouble and many weeks of work down the drain.  Mediation at the beginning and during a project can help eliminate waste due to lack of understanding.  In Trademark cases, be they infringement or TTAB inter partes, Mediation can get parties in similar businesses to see their differences clearer and even to decide to do business with each other, albeit one may have to give up a mark. 

Arbitration

• Arbitration is a service most courts and many private organizations provide for resolution of disputes by a "mini trial."   Business or "contractual" and "judicial arbitration" are the basic types, where the arbitrator conducts a hearing in a trial-like but more relaxed atmosphere and is acting as a substitute judge. The rules of evidence are not as strictly adhered to and Arbitration is also privately conducted.  Arbitration does not carry with it the same degree of privacy as mediation because there are not rules of confidentiality in the hearings - what is said and offered in evidence is seen and heard by all. Most of this can also be used in a later trial. 
• Contractual arbitrations are where the parties have agreed to arbitrate a dispute when they made an agreement.  The parties to a contractual arbitration cannot go to court, they must arbitrate; a court would dismiss a case if one party to an agreed arbitration merely filed suit.  The decision of the Arbitrator is final and cannot be appealed, generally.  
• Others are ordered by a Court for the usual reason that the amounts in controversy or the importance compared with other cases should not clog the court's calendar.   The rules generally applied to arbitration require adherence to the basic rules and laws of evidence.  If the Arbitrator is to be bound to use certain law, it must be stated in the Arbitration Agreement.  The parties are still letting a third person decide the fate of their dispute. One will "win" and be happy, while the other will "lose" and the parties may never work together again.

Mediation

In mediation, the goal is "win-win" for both sides. The mediator does not have any decisional power but facilitates an agreement between the parties. It is private, confidential, and needs to be a cooperative technique. 

The parties are encouraged to work towards their common goals in an early, inexpensive, and durable resolution to their problem. The settlement is made durable by a written agreement between the parties, that agrees to settle and dismiss whatever court case may be pending on the issues, payment(s), transfers of property, IPR and other matters.

Thus mediation can be "binding" if the parties resolve their dispute, and make an agreement (contract) about how they will perform under their settled resolution. A mediator can bring understanding to disputes to make the chances of a successful resolution far greater than in unfacilitated negotiations and offers such relief at an earlier point in time where it can be more beneficial. Seek the best mediator for the problem and parties.

Even in cases where parties cannot come to complete agreement, mediation can eliminate and clarify issues; and streamline the discovery process to save the parties time and money. Microsoft vs. Stac was a prominent and unusual case in point, where Stac charged Microsoft with infringement allegedly from embedding or integrating the famous Stacker compression system into an MS product. After litigation and after a long and costly appeal, which Stac "won." This being the case, the parties creatively still finally resolved their beef with exchanges stock for another's, cross licensing arrangements. Thus mediation can even help resolve disputes when litigation has begun. It is best to mediate a dispute when it is not at so costly a stage, however.

If the parties NEED to work together for better products, to market and to avoid the notoriety of litigation, mediation is a way to go. If cost is a factor, so that parties in dispute want to avoid paying for litigation to let a third person (judge or arbitrator) tell them who wins, mediation is a way to go. If the potential partners to a complex multimedia or entertainment, software or animation project are many and the stakes are high, a pre-contract "partnering" mediation is a way to get potential disputes into the open, discussed and mediated by a knowledgeable mediator to PREVENT a dispute at all.  If a sports agreement is hanging in the balance and the parties need to work as a team, mediation is a way to work it out. Think about it.

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