Early Neutral Evaluation: An Alternative Dispute Resolution in Intellectual Property

Early Neutral Evaluation (ENE) is a new form of alternative dispute resolution that has demonstrated success in various cases and has proven to be particularly suitable in intellectual property disputes. Due to the special characteristics of intellectual properties, adopting ENE in the early stage of an IP dispute or action has many advantages. The preliminary assessment of a case saves time, money, confidentiality, and other features crucial in IP cases. The ENE provides a frank and candid opinion to the parties about the merits of their claims according to appropriate procedural and substantive law. Special Features of patent, copyright and trademark cases deserve to be solved by the ENE method. In complex issues, a combination of ENE and mediation can work well together to solve disputes and claims appropriately, which is better than judicial and arbitral solutions.