Former lawyer and chief executive of mediation and arbitration at ArgyStar.com, Philip Argy said that organisations can resolve the majority of commercial disputes through mediation rather than legal battles.

Argy said many disputes were a matter of both parties to a dispute believing they were right.

"Yet being right isn't the real issue and won't necessarily solve their problems," he said. "At the end of the day they are looking for a commercial outcome; and that's what can be achieved by discussing the issue in a mediated environment."

In court only one party can win, said Argy, but it's usually at a great financial and emotional cost. He uses an analogy of people fighting over the ownership of an orange to make his point: "If it goes to court, eventually one party will prove they own it and they other will be left with nothing," he said.

"At mediation it may emerge that in fact, one person wants to use the orange peel for (making) chocolate, while the other wants the juice."

Argy will appear as part of a panel at the 2009 Annual Licensing Executives Society of Australia and New Zealand conference, where he will discuss dispute resolution and IP.

- Angela Priestley