The draft report published by the IBA in September examined the existence and utilisation of specialised IP courts and judges in 78 countries.

It found that just three countries have specialised IP courts, namely the United Kingdom, Thailand, and Turkey.

Twenty-five countries were found to have courts of general jurisdiction with specialised divisions for IP matters or specialist judges with IP backgrounds and expertise in IP cases. These were: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Belgium, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Romania, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

In addition, eleven countries have appellate courts that have exclusive jurisdiction to hear IP cases and also hear other types of appeals (Chile, Colombia, Finland, France, India, Korea, Panama, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United States), whilst Austria, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland have commercial divisions at the lower and high court levels that hear IP cases in addition to other business disputes.

The report put forward several recommendations for improving the options available to those seeking to protect their intellectual property internationally. These included creating specialised IP divisions in general courts where they do not already exist, providing improved training for judges, and encouraging them to specialise more, and pushing for greater information exchange amongst members of the judiciary dealing with IP-related matters.

However, according to reports on the IBA conference in the international media, several of those speaking on the proposals suggested that the perception that specialised courts are necessarily patent-holder 'friendly' may be misleading.

Other speakers reportedly suggested that in some countries, the IP caseload may be too small to justify the number of designated IP judges needed to ensure a fair and objective system. Such countries were urged to consider the benefits of international arbitration and mediation as an alternative.