In June 2019, Barco filed suit in the United States against Delta Electronics, Inc. and its subsidiary Vivitek Corporation for infringement of its ClickShare patents. Now, less than a year after the case began, Delta and Vivitek have agreed to withdraw their LauncherPlus products from the U.S. market.
Successful enforcement of Barco’s patent rights
Barco’s U.S. lawsuit against Delta and Vivitek is part of a coordinated worldwide effort to enforce its patents against those who commercialize wireless presentation systems copying ClickShare’s original features. As a direct result of Barco’s enforcement action, Delta and Vivitek have agreed to withdraw their LauncherPlus wireless presentation product in the United States.
This achievement follows the successful completion of another U.S. infringement case in February 2020. Barco ended its case against Sahara Presentation Systems after obtaining that its Clevershare products were materially redesigned to avoid patent infringement. As a result, the Clevershare product lacks some of the unique technical capabilities (like the built-in WIFI-chip) that make ClickShare a simple, user-friendly and secure presentation system.
Barco has also obtained IP protection victories in other countries, including a preliminary injunction against two major distributors in Denmark in 2018, seizure of devices from the ISE trade show in the Netherlands in 2017 and 2019, as well as various settlement agreements preventing distributors from further dealings in infringing devices.
A broad and strong patent portfolio for wireless presentation and conferencing
Barco continues to protect its ongoing innovation and improvement in the wireless presentation space, including its new ClickShare Conference product. In March 2020, Patent Number 10,585,814 was granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for ClickShare. This new patent provides even broader protection for every iteration of ClickShare by removing certain restrictions on where the operative software must be stored within the presentation-system environment. Moreover, in January 2020, the USPTO issued a notice of allowance for US patent application US20190205275 protecting Barco’s Clickshare Conference. A positive search report was also issued by the World Intellectual Property Organization for the co-pending international patent application WO2019129696A1.
Continuing protection of innovative IP
Barco highly values its intellectual property, as well as the significant efforts and investment of its distributors, resellers, and partners to market and sell innovative Barco products like ClickShare and ClickShare Conference. Barco will continue to obtain patents to protect and enforce its valuable IP worldwide against companies copying Barco’s IP, says Barco General Counsel Kurt Verheggen.
