Barco has asked the European Unified Patent Court (UPC) to prohibit Yealink to further make, sell and distribute its wireless conferencing systems.
The UPC is a new, specialist court before which a unitary patent can be enforced in all its contracting member states. These legal proceedings in Europe complement the patent infringement lawsuit filed against Yealink in the United States in November 2023, resulting in Yealink admitting the infringement of ClickShare IP and withdrawing their WPP30 Presentation Pod from the US market.
In June 2024, the ClickShare IP portfolio reached an important milestone with the addition of the first unitary patent immediately enforceable in 17 EU member states. ClickShare’s wireless presentation and conferencing is now protected by more than 110 patents in major jurisdictions.
Barco believes that Yealink infringes some of ClickShare Conference’s patented functionalities, that enable users to host video calls from their own laptop with their preferred video conferencing platforms, while using the AV equipment of the meeting room for a wireless Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) experience.
“Since its establishment 90 years ago, Barco has constantly innovated to create a better, smarter and healthier world,” said Kurt Verheggen, General Counsel at Barco. “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.”