Cross-border disputes are costly? Uncover how WIPO arbitration and mediation can help enterprises save millions in rights protection fees

2025-05-14

When a new energy technology company discovers that its European partner has applied for a patent for a jointly developed battery management technology without authorization, the legal director is faced with a difficult multiple-choice question: if a lawsuit is initiated locally, it needs to prepare at least 2 million yuan of basic fees and a two-year cycle, and it is extremely difficult to collect evidence across borders; If you give up rights protection, it means that the core technology may be obtained at a low price by competitors. The deadlock was finally broken through the mediation mechanism of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) - under the auspices of professional mediators, the two sides reached a settlement agreement in just 5 months, and the cost of enterprise rights protection was reduced to less than 800,000 yuan, and the long-term cooperative relationship was maintained.

Such cases are becoming the new normal for enterprises to "go overseas" to resolve disputes. According to WIPO's latest Global Dispute Resolution Report 2024, cross-border intellectual property disputes handled through arbitration and mediation take only one-third of the average time of traditional litigation, with a mediation success rate of 67% for cases involving Chinese companies, an increase of 21 percentage points from five years ago. This efficiency is due to the three practical advantages unique to the WIPO mechanism: non-adversarial negotiation minimizes damage to commercial relationships, customized confidentiality clauses to avoid secondary leakage of technical information, and the network of 152 contracting states relying on the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (i.e., the New York Convention) allows mediation results to be enforced more quickly across borders than court judgments.

For enterprises that intend to systematically reduce the risk of rights protection, there are three action suggestions worth paying attention to. First, WIPO dispute resolution clauses should be embedded in foreign-related contracts such as technology licenses and joint venture agreements in advance, such as stipulating that "any dispute arising from this contract shall be submitted to the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center for mediation, and if the mediation fails, it will be transferred to arbitration proceedings". Secondly, establish a dynamic evidence archiving mechanism, and email exchanges, experimental data, and meeting minutes in cross-border cooperation should be stored in accordance with the electronic storage standards required by WIPO to ensure that the evidence chain can be retrieved within 48 hours when disputes occur. In 2024, a smart home company relied on the WIPO mediation plan provided by Kane Toppo to complete the infringement probability analysis within 7 working days after receiving the allegations from US competitors, and finally turned the potential crisis into a business cooperation opportunity through a cross-licensing agreement.

At present, the types of disputes handled by Chinese enterprises through the WIPO system have extended from traditional trademark squatting and patent infringement to emerging fields such as data compliance and AI algorithm theft. In April this year, a biopharmaceutical company used WIPO's emergency arbitration procedure to obtain an injunction against foreign partners for illegally transferring gene databases within 14 days, setting a record for the fastest time for the organization to handle biotechnology disputes. These practices confirm a trend that as intellectual property rights increasingly become a central bargaining chip in global competition, companies that take advantage of international rules are building lighter and stronger barriers of protection.