[Ed. note: hat tip to our blog contributor Don Philbin.] On January 20, 2010, the Council of Defense and Space Industry Associations (CODSIA) sent a letter to the Director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy raising questions and issues in implementing Section 8116 of the Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations Act (aka the “Franken Amendment”). Section 8116 prohibits the use of funds for certain contracts unless the contractor agrees not to enter or enforce binding arbitration contracts with their employees. CODSIA seeks to clarify Section 8116’s legislative intent in order to implement the amendment consistently. Find the letter describing the issues here. Related Posts: U.S. Arbitration and Mediation Legislative Update (Jan. 25, 2010) Guest-Post Part II | Employment Arbitration: Short-Term Value but Long-Term Harm (Jan. 7, 2010) Guest-Post Part I | Employment Arbitration: Short-Term Value but Long-Term Harm (Jan. 6, 2010) 2009 Developments: Consumer and Employment Arbitration (Dec. 23, 2009) Defense Contractor Mandatory Arbitration Passes Senate (Oct. 13, 2009) Jones v. Halliburton: Fifth Circuit Rules on Arbitration of Tort Claims by an Employee (Sept. 18, 2009) Technorati Tags: law, ADR, arbitration

Please join us in congratulating Mediate.com for their recent ABA Award. As readers of this blog may know, Disputing is a Mediate.com Featured Blog. Mediate.com Receives Prestigious American Bar Association (ABA) Award Eugene, Oregon – Mediate.com, the leading mediation web site in the world, has received the 2010 American Bar Association (ABA) Lawyer as Problem Solver Award. The award is for the use of “legal skills in creative, innovative and often non­traditional ways.” The award presentation will be on April 9, 2010 in San Francisco. In awarding the Problem Solver Award to Mediate.com, the American Bar Association provides the following statement: “Mediate.com has been at the forefront of making the power of the Internet accessible to lawyers, mediators and dispute resolution practitioners. Mediate.com has been developing digital products and resources that have advanced the presence and depth of the field of dispute resolution in immeasurable ways and fundamentally altered the practice of mediation by making online strategies practical and available. “Mediate.com offers the field one of the most used information resources, replete with blogs, cutting edge articles, news of mediation and negotiation practice, as well as a place for interactive dialogue. The website is a practical tool for practitioners and helps them become more effective problem solvers. “Mediate.com applies the technology of the internet directly to lawyers and dispute resolution practitioners. The founders of Mediate.com had the foresight to see the importance and applications of the Internet and bring them to bear on a developing field of practice. This groundbreaking website has given tools and resources to the public and to ADR professionals to do their own problem solving in virtually every field of law.” James Melamed, CEO of Mediate.com, responded to news of the award saying that, “If ever there was a team effort, this is it. Mediate.com is the result of more 1,000 authors contributing their best work since 1996. As a result, we are able to bring the best of mediation to the broader world.” Mediate.com has been the #1 mediation destination site for 15 years and continues to provide world class content to consumers and professionals. In commenting on the Mediate.com award, Peter Adler, President of The Keystone Center in Colorado, said, “Mediate.com provides an enormous service to the vast community of people who share a passion for conflict resolution, who want to make the world a better place and who are doing this every single day.” Jeffrey Krivis, a leading California attorney and civil mediator, adds, “Based upon 15 years of passionate work, Mediate.com has become to mediators what Google has become to the Internet.” Mediate.com was founded in 1996 and has developed the most comprehensive mediator directory in the world with over 5,000 listed mediators. Through its 15 years of development, Mediate.com has elevated and expanded the mediation industry and helped to bring mediation to every computer on earth. More information about Mediate.com services can be found here.

by Holly Hayes I recently read a healthcare conflict resolution article in FOCUS, the newsletter of the Harvard Medical, Dental, & Public Health Schools. The article begins with the statement, “Everyone in health care, it seems, has a war story about conflict at work.” In an annual one-week intensive immersion course, Leonard Marcus, who directs the program for Health Care Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Harvard, and his team teach conflict resolution skills to health care leaders from different organizations. The course adapts to health care the basic principles of conflict resolution described in “Getting to Yes” by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton of the Harvard Negotiation Project. Marcus discusses why conflict in the health care setting is different from conflict in other industries and reviews the ‘Four-step Approach to Problem-solving’ used in the Harvard course: “In health care, we are passionate about what we do, and that’s a plus,” Marcus said. “When passions collide, that same drive can be a source of conflict. The stakes are high–life and death, large amounts of money, big institutions, reputations. Therefore, people fight hard which, ironically, becomes an obstacle in and of itself.” A Four-step Approach to Problem-solving Four negotiation steps developed by the Program for Health Care Negotiation and Conflict Resolution guide minor and major negotiations in health care. The structured multidimensional problem-solving process is called “Walk in the Woods,” after a famous story in which international negotiators at loggerheads over a nuclear arms treaty went for a walk in the woods near Geneva and discovered common interests that led to new solutions. Step one: self interests. Each participant articulates his or her view of key problems, issues, and options. They are encouraged to actively listen, question, and interact with one another. Step two: enlarged interests. The participants reframe their understanding of current problems and possible options with a wider perspective, based on the integrative listening and confidence-building that occurred in step one. Step three: enlightened interests. The group is ready to engage in innovative thinking and problem-solving, generating ideas and perspectives that had not previously been considered. Step four: aligned interests. Participants build common ground perspectives, priorities, action items, agreement, or plans for moving forward. Depending on the scope of the intended objectives, at this point they recognize the tangible contributions and opportunities accomplished through the meeting. Health care professionals at all levels who find themselves in a situation of work conflict can benefit from the “discovery of common interests” — after all, they share the overarching common interest of working together to provide patient’s with high quality care. The Harvard Four-step process can lead parties toward those “aligned interests” and enhanced teamwork. Technorati Tags: Healthcare, ADR, law, mediation Holly Hayes is a mediator at Karl Bayer, Dispute Resolution Expert where she focuses on mediation of health care disputes. Holly holds a B.A. from Southern Methodist University and a Masters in Health Administration from Duke University. She can be reached at: holly@karlbayer.com.

A single-member Panel at the National Arbitration Forum decided the domain dispute Microsoft Corporation v. TN Chen, FA0911001296240 (Nat. Arb. Forum Jan. 13, 2010). The Complainant is Microsoft Corporation and the Respondent is TN Chen from China. The domain names at issue are <bing-wallpaper.com> and <bingimg.com>, registered with GoDaddy.com, Inc. “Bing” is the name of Microsoft’s web search engine. ICANN‘s Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy requires that Complainant must prove each of the following three elements to obtain an order that a domain name should be canceled or transferred: The domain name registered by Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant has rights. The Panel found that the disputed domain names both contain Complainant’s mark and add the generic top-level domain “gTLD” “.com.” The <bing-wallpaper.com> domain name also adds a hyphen and the generic term “wallpaper.” The <bingimg.com> domain name further adds the abbreviation “img,” which stands for image. The Panel finds the addition of a hyphen, generic term, letters, and a gTLD fail to adequately distinguish the disputed domain names from Complainant’s mark. Therefore, the Panel finds Respondent’s <bing-wallpaper.com> and <bingimg.com> domain names are confusingly similar to Complainant’s BING mark. Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name. Because Respondent has offered no evidence, and there is no evidence on the record, suggesting that Respondent is commonly known by the <bing-wallpaper.com> and <bingimg.com> domain names. Complainant asserts that Respondent has never been authorized or licensed to use the BING mark.Therefore, the Panel found that Respondent has not established rights or legitimate interests in the <bing-wallpaper.com> and <bingimg.com> domain names. The domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith. Finally, the Panel explained that Respondent’s <bing-wallpaper.com> and <bingimg.com> domain names resolve to a website containing hyperlinks to search engine providers that compete with Complainant. Internet users may use a competing search engine instead of Complainant’s new search engine because of Respondent’s competing use of the confusingly similar disputed domain names. Therefore, the Panel finds Respondent’s use of the disputed domain names disrupts Complainant’s search engine business, which constitutes bad faith registration. Accordingly, the Panel ordered the disputed domain names to be transferred from the Respondent to the Complainant. Technorati Tags: ADR, law, arbitration, domain names disputes