The Neutral should be given the question that actually needs independent help, while legal interpretation and technical advice remain with the appropriate specialists.
SITUATION / TECHNOLOGY LICENSING STRAIN
The licence still matters while the parties stop agreeing on what it allows.
Technology licensing strain can mix contractual scope, technical implementation, royalties, product change, data and strategic dependency. A useful Neutral route separates the rights question from the operating relationship before either one overwhelms the other.
Use rights, territory, field, users or product scope may be contested.
Technical performance and integration may distort the rights argument.
Royalties, usage, milestones or minimums can carry the wider relationship.
TECHNOLOGY RELATIONSHIP UNDER STRAIN
Software changes quickly. Contract language and commercial expectations often do not.
Independent process can help the parties isolate licensing scope, technical performance and commercial consequences without pretending one professional should decide every layer.
RECOGNISE THE PRESSURE
Technology licensing strain becomes harder when product change and contract history move at different speeds.
Look for the point where a defined question can be separated from the whole technology relationship.
Users, geography, products or affiliates are disputed.
Technical underperformance becomes part of the commercial argument.
Usage, revenue or audit figures do not produce one accepted amount.
New features, AI, data use or integrations were not anticipated clearly.
The customer, licensor or platform relationship remains commercially important.
LICENCE / SYSTEM / COMMERCIAL RELATIONSHIP
The rights question and the operating technology question should not blur into one.
A defined Neutral mandate can focus on one layer while preserving the wider commercial relationship around it.
TECHNOLOGY
The system can keep changing while the dispute is still being described.
LICENCE
Commercial scope needs to stay visible around technical detail.
Neutral Evaluation can help test a defined commercial position without deciding the whole dispute.
Expert Determination may fit a tightly defined technical or calculation issue where authority has been delegated expressly.
Technical and legal advisers remain responsible for their specialist work.
WHAT KIND OF INDEPENDENT HELP IS MISSING?
Choose the route from whether the parties need clarity, movement or a defined specialist decision.
Technology sophistication should make the mandate narrower, not broader.
LIKELY NEUTRAL ROUTE
Neutral Evaluation
Use a defined assessment where the parties need a credible outside reference point before deciding how to proceed.
MANDATE DESIGN
A technology mandate should make scope and professional boundaries unusually clear.
The Neutral should know which legal, technical and commercial questions are inside the assignment.
Scope, performance, royalty, data use or another defined question.
System logs, specifications, releases, usage or implementation evidence.
Keep formal legal advice with counsel unless a different role is expressly agreed.
Assessment and determination are different.
Protect live systems, customers and critical services where possible.
View, agreement, process plan or specialist decision.
RELATED SITUATIONS
Technology licensing strain often sits beside wider technology and cross-border situations.
Move laterally when the underlying pressure is broader than the licence itself.
IP
Technology / IP question
When rights, ownership or content questions are central.
DATA Data / AI commercial questionWhen data use or AI deployment is the core issue.
CROSS-BORDER Cross-border strainWhen market context materially shapes the licensing relationship.
VALUE ValuationWhen royalty or pricing mechanics become the defined question.
SECTOR Technology & DataFor broader sector context.
FROM SITUATION TO PERSON
Find the professional for the actual technology question, not someone who simply works in technology.
Role, technical depth, licensing experience, sector and jurisdiction can refine fit after the Neutral function is clear.
PROFESSIONAL DISCOVERY
The strongest technology Neutral understands enough context to frame the issue and enough boundaries not to become the technology team.
THE PERSON
Role fit comes before biography.
Do not search by prestige before the mandate is clear.
Sector, jurisdiction and specialist depth should refine fit.
Use the Global Register, then run matter-specific conflict and availability checks.
SITUATION TO NEUTRAL FUNCTION
The situation should be separated into the few questions that actually need different professional treatment.
A clearer issue map prevents one broad label from silently transferring authority or specialist responsibility to the Neutral.
RIGHTS
What does the licence actually permit?
Scope, territory, field of use, sublicensing, source access or exclusivity may need legal interpretation separate from process support.
PRODUCT
How has the technology changed?
Versions, integrations, APIs, platforms and business models may evolve faster than the original contract language.
DEPENDENCY
What must keep working?
Customers, operations, data, updates, support and security can make abrupt relationship failure commercially damaging.
FUTURE
Repair, relicense or transition?
The parties should know whether they are trying to restore the licence, redesign it or plan separation.
SITUATION TO NEUTRAL FUNCTION
Move from immediate pressure into a defined professional route.
The strongest process protects what must keep working while legal, technical, financial and institutional authority remains visible.
Separate rights from operating dependency
Identify what the contract says and what the technology relationship requires operationally right now.
Protect critical continuity
Where appropriate, keep support, access, service or transition routes working while the substantive issue is addressed.
Use mediation for commercial redesign
Pricing, scope, territory, support and future licensing can be negotiated without asking the mediator to decide legal rights.
Use evaluation or determination for a bounded question
Where a technical or contractual issue needs an independent view or determinative answer, define the authority and specialist competence expressly.
Keep IP, cybersecurity and regulatory advice separate
The Neutral should not become patent counsel, data-protection counsel, security investigator or software architect by implication.
SITUATION TO NEUTRAL FUNCTION
A Neutral can add independence without becoming the underlying authority.
The live mandate should state both the useful function and the boundary around it.
A NEUTRAL CAN HELP WITH
A defined licensing process.
- Mediation of commercial licensing terms.
- Neutral Evaluation of a bounded technology question.
- Expert Determination where suitable specialist authority exists.
- Structured transition or continuity discussion.
- Separation of operating dependency from final rights questions.
THE NEUTRAL SHOULD NOT BECOME
Technology owner, counsel or architect.
- Not the licensor or licensee.
- Not IP counsel by default.
- Not a cybersecurity investigator.
- Not the software architect.
- Not able to rewrite licence rights without party authority.
PROFESSIONAL DISCOVERY
Current public professional records
Only currently published professional records are shown.
PUBLIC PROFESSIONAL RECORD / Mackay, Australia
Cheryl Bryan
Arbitrator & Mediator
mediationarbitrationBanking and FinanceEducationReal Estate and Property Disputes
Published record: Cheryl has twenty years of progressive experience in the ADR field and holds National Mediation Accreditation. Her professional history covers a variety of mediator roles across a number of government…
PUBLIC PROFESSIONAL RECORD / Duchelsdorf, Germany
Thomas Knaak
Arbitrator & Mediator
mediationarbitrationBanking and FinanceInformationCommunications and Technology
Published record: Positions Since 2015 Member of the ICC Commission on Arbitration, Task force on the Revision of the Rules of ICC as Appointing Authority in UNCITRAL or other ad hoc Arbitration…
PUBLIC PROFESSIONAL RECORD / Brisbane, Australia
Russell Thirgood
Arbitrator & Mediator
mediationarbitrationBanking and FinanceHealthcare Disputes Practice GroupInformation
Published record: Russell is an expert arbitrator and dispute resolution lawyer and leads the firm’s arbitration practice. Russell is recognised for his work in major and complex disputes, having advised some of…
PUBLIC PROFESSIONAL RECORD / Cape Town, South Africa
Martin Yodaiken
Arbitrator & Mediator
mediationarbitrationBanking and FinanceHealthcare Disputes Practice Group
Published record: Martin Yodaiken is a clinical psychologist with specialist international training in mediation (both commercial and family) and negotiation. He has worked extensively with the legal profession both assisting parties to…
TECHNOLOGY LICENSING STRAIN
Technology licensing strain becomes easier to manage when the licence, the system and the relationship stop being treated as one question.
Define the layer under pressure and choose the independent function from that.