If the gestation period for dogs is two months, for humans it is nine months, and for African elephants it is a whopping twenty-one months, what is the gestation period for an international legal instrument—patent treaty—designed to ensure patents do not inadvertently incorporate traditional knowledge? If you guessed twenty-four years, congratulations!  You have a preternatural understanding of how difficult it is for states with conflicting interests to reach consensus on this kind of instrument. (Thirteen African elephants can be born successively to the same mother in twenty-four years.)

Most people today, when caught in a commercial dispute that they can’t resolve by themselves, turn to a respected impartial person to settle the matter. In days of old, that “neutral” would have been a wise elder, a religious authority or a feudal lord, who would hear the parties’ contentions in his courtyard.

This is the second edition of IPIC's member profile series on the UnscrIPted blog, which features a monthly interview with a Canadian IP professional to discuss their career accomplishments, interests and overall outlook on the IP profession. Richard Levy has been an IPIC member since 1986 and has been a member of multiple IPIC Committees, as well as the Chair of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee. He is based in Montreal, where he runs his private practice, Levy IP Law and Dispute Resolutions. 

The vast array of platforms that gather under the inelegant moniker, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), has populated the online digital field for years. As for using mediation, which is thought of as so reliant upon personal cajoling and persuasion, it has, against expectation, found considerable success in the online world, in some areas of dispute. Which does augur well for its use in IP disputes.