A: Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) has established DPS Office in 2002 for facilitating an alternative to settle disputes between parties in the dispute. We assist and provide them an arbitration and reconciliation system for resolving their disputes which in relation to intellectual property. We believe that, by our system, it would make dispute resolution more efficient, speedy, cost-effective, and fair to parties concerned.

 

 

A: Arbitration is a dispute settlement mechanism in civil law in which parties in dispute agree to present the dispute to an outside party which is called “Arbitrator” to provide a finding according to available evidence and witnesses. It sound like the process in the court, but it is more flexible. Furthermore, the parties involved in the dispute would designate the arbitrator by themselves. This system is accepted in many countries around the world and also supported by an international treaty provided by UNCITRAL. It has been used in dispute settlements of many areas such as disputes related insurance contract, business and trading contracts and civil and commercial laws. In Thailand at present, the arbitration system is becoming more accepted. There is the law, “The Arbitration Act 2002” , which adopted from the UNCITRAL model law.

 

 

A:The arbitration process could be initiated by one of the parties in disputes, or both, submit the request to Director-General of DIP. DPS Office shall inform of the request to the other party. When the parties in dispute agree to choose the arbitration process to settle the dispute, they are allowed to choose 1 or 3 arbitrators as agreed. Currently, DIP has registered the persons who shall be arbitrators for various fields. There are around 45 specialists from various fields of intellectual property. After having been chosen by the parties in dispute, the arbitrator shall make an appointment to meet with the parties in dispute to inquire about the dispute. Then the arbitrator shall determine the issues and duties for investigation, together with documental and personal evidences. The appointment shall also be made to take evidence from each party.

 

The decision of arbitrator is confidential, and the final decision shall be made within 90 days or expandable. The final decision of the arbitrator has binding result. That is, both parties in dispute have to conform to such decision. If any party in dispute does not act in accordance with the arbitrator’s decision, the winning party may submit the complaint to the court within that jurisdiction to enforce the arbitrator’s decision. This is in conformity with the Arbitration Act 2002.

 

 

A: We handle the cases regarding all types of Intellectual Property, namely Patent, Trademark, Copyrights, Integrated Circuit and Layout Design, Trade Secret, Geographical Indications, Trade Name, Plant Species Protection, as well as other issues with relevance to Intellectual Property such as agreement on compensation of Copyright usage, agreement on license for Patent or Trademark, etc. we proceed our service since he end of year 2002. Until now, there were over than 500 disputes brought to us, which most is copyright case (around 100 disputes). However, among those disputes, only 4 or 5 cases that went into arbitration process meanwhile almost 200 disputes have been successfully settled by our initial conciliation. Most of copyright cases is concerning to software, music and literatures.

 

 

A: I think because Thai people do not familiar with this system. We trust in Court. In addition, sometime the arbitration could not compensate the damages to them as much as the court decides, so they think it is not worth to bring the case to arbitration. However, actually, in the Court ‘s process, the injured person has to proof about the actual damages, too. Moreover, the Court has the sole discretion to decide the reasonable damages being compensated to the wining party. In final, however, I think the compensation will be not significant different, meanwhile the arbitration is efficient and speedier.

 

We try to hold seminars 2-3 times in a year in order to educate people about our service. We do hope that Thai people, especially SMEs, will recognize this alternative for settling their disputes concerning IP.

 

korea copyright commission

Thailand correspondent