Browsing by Author "Wolfram, Dahlia"

The topic of the thesis is the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal in disputes related to intellectual property license agreements. The situations that I study concern different types of claims regarding a licence agreement that contains an arbitration clause. In which situations does the arbitral tribunal have jurisdiction over a dispute where the licensee has utilised the protected right outside of the scope of the agreement? What if the licensee utilises the protected right in territories that are not covered by the agreement? Is this a breach of the license agreement or simply an infringement of intellectual property, or could it be both? And does the arbitral tribunal have jurisdiction over the dispute if the situation is seen to be an infringement of intellectual property? The same questions can be asked when the licensee has taken advantage of the intellectual property right during time periods other than agreed in the license agreement. When is a license agreement dispute not arbitrable at all, or are all such disputes arbitrable? The scope of the arbitration agreement has a very central role in the thesis. I examine how the scope is determined and which claims the arbitration agreement covers. The study is limited to disputes regarding use outside the scope of the license agreement. It does not deal with e.g. disputes concerning royalty payments. In the thesis, I come to the conclusion that the international trend is that the view towards the arbitral tribunal's jurisdiction is becoming more liberal. A restrictive interpretation of the jurisdiction is seen to be out-dated. This trend will probably increase the use of arbitration in license agreement disputes even further. The three main prerequisites for the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal are a valid arbitration agreement, a dispute that is arbitrable, and a dispute that falls within the scope of the arbitration agreement. In this study, the starting point is that there is a valid arbitration agreement. The arbitrability of IP disputes is not unambiguous. Disputes regarding registration and validity of IPRs are non-arbitrable in Finland and in many other countries. Such disputes are not capable of settlement and thereby, they belong exclusively to the courts. Most disputes related to license agreements are, however, arbitrable. In conclusion, a dispute regarding exceeding a license restriction is principally arbitrable, unless a question of validity is included. Exceeding a license restriction normally constitutes both IPR infringement and a breach of contract, which means that this type of dispute falls within the scope of the arbitration agreement. Nevertheless, there are situations where the arbitration clause would probably not be applicable, since the infringement is too distant from the license agreement. In these cases, it could be deemed that the dispute concerns a legal relationship other than the one specified in the arbitration agreement.