Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York refused to compel arbitration on the grounds that Nokia had waived its rights to arbitrate through its conduct in prior proceedings. The case, Nokia Corp. v. InterDigital, Inc. (2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17376) relates to patent infringement and was heard by the Second Circuit on July 31, 2008 (2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 16328). Back then, the Second Circuit concluded that Nokia waived arbitration through “its repeated, intentional invocation of judicial process to resolve questions about the scope of the patents at issue” and remanded to district court for development of the factual record. Now, the U.S. District Court agreed with the Second Circuit and sent the case to the International Trade Commission (ITC) for further proceedings. See here a related article by the Wall Street Journal. Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, law, patent infringement, ITC

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Vaden v. Discover Bank (No. 07-773) 556 U.S. __ (2009). Interpreting section 4 of the FAA, the Court held that the federal court had no jurisdiction to compel arbitration because the underlying dispute arose under state law and the whole controversy did not qualify for federal-court adjudication. Special thanks to our friend Ross Runkel for bringing this important case to our attention. Visit here professor Runkel’s commentary on this case. See also the ABA Journal Law News Now for further commentary. Technorati Tags: arbitration, ADR, law

This post caught my attention, written by Gene Quinn from the IP Watchdog. I visited the survey and it takes only 3 minutes to complete the multiple choice questionnaire. Needless to say, this study could be an excellent avenue to promote arbitration and mediation to aid the resolution of patent-related disputes. The Alternative Patent Dispute Resolution Project (”APDRP”) at Thomas Jefferson School of Law (”TJSL”) in San Diego, California is conducting an on-line survey of lawyers, judges, clerks and scholars such as you to gauge the industry’s perception of some fairly recent proposals to improve the current Federal patent adjudicative process in the United States and to encourage the use of alternatives thereto such as mediation and arbitration. This survey seeks to provide an update to a previous survey I personally conducted while at Franklin Pierce Law Center and writing my thesis that was then a requirement for obtaining an LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law. My original work entitled Using Alternative Dispute Resolution to Resolve Patent Litigation: A Survey of Patent Litigators, was published in the Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review in 1999. The results of the survey will be made available to anyone who requests a copy, and the results will be analyzed, published by the APDRP in a law review article, and then discussed by the group at the Patent Dispute Resolution: Improving Patent Adjudication Through ADR and Court Reform symposium to be held on April 3, 2009 in San Diego, CA. The APDRP would also like to present the results of the survey to members of the U.S. Congress and the judiciary to assist them in their efforts to improve the Federal patent adjudication process.

Another beautiful week in Austin, Texas. We thought you would be interested to know that the following bills have been introduced recently by the 81st Texas Legislature: S.B. 556. To amend the Insurance Code, by, among other things, adding a clause to provide for binding arbitration agreements within the context of health care contracts with physicians and health care providers. Status: Referred to the Senate Committee on State Affairs on 02/23/2009. H.B. 1635. To abolish the Texas Residential Construction Commission and provide for the phasing out of arbitration claims. Status: Referred to the House Committee of Business and Industry on 03/03/2009.