Barco has asserted its ClickShare IP rights against Yealink in Europe's Unified Patent Court, asking the court to prohibit Yealink from further making, selling, and distributing its wireless conferencing solutions.
Barco outlines that the Unified Patent Court (UPC) is a new specialist court that allows for the enforcement of a unitary patent across all its contracting member states.
Barco says the UPC legal proceedings are in addition to the patent infringement lawsuit filed against Yealink in the US in November 2023. The company stated that, as a result of this lawsuit, Yealink admitted to infringing on ClickShare's intellectual property and subsequently withdrew its WPP30 Presentation Pod from the US market.
Kurt Verheggen, General Counsel at Barco, commented:
Over the years, we’ve built a solid reputation of vigorously defending our IP against companies copying our break-through technologies. With the creation of the UPC in 2023, we can now enforce a patent in its contracting member states and deter copy-cats with an effective legal remedy, just like in the US."
Barco outlined that in June 2024, the ClickShare IP portfolio achieved a milestone by adding its first unitary patent, which became enforceable in 17 EU member states. This meant that ClickShare's "innovation in wireless presentation and conferencing (was) now protected by more than 110 patents in major jurisdictions", as described by Barco.
Barco asserts that Yealink has infringed on some of ClickShare Conference's patented functionalities. These cited functionalities allow users to host video calls from their own laptops using their preferred video conferencing platforms while utilising the meeting room's audio and video equipment for a premium wireless Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) experience.
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Yealink's Challenge
Yealink challenged Barco's US lawsuit last month, petitioning the United States Patent and Trademark Office to institute "inter partes" reviews of Barco's patents related to wireless presentation technology.
