One of the big stories from Day 1 of ISE here in Amsterdam was certainly the fact that a court officer from Belgium traveled down to the Amsterdam RAI convention center, entered the KanexPro booth and removed all of their MyTurn Collaboration Systems that were being launched into the market. It was the result of a judge’s order that it was possible that the MyTurn violated Barco’s patents on ClickShare. Here’s my story on that.

So, what’s next?

I walked on over to Barco’s booth this morning, the day after it all happened, and met with Barco’s Senior VP of Enterprise George Stromeyer to get the scoop. His response was clear: “We are signaling our plan to protect our IP.” When I asked him if we can expect more of this, he said that the KanexPro seizure was just “a targeted opening salvo” and that we can expect more, if continued IP infringement continues.

Barco wants anyone who makes a wireless collaboration system to either used the AWIND chip technology (that’s the technology inside the ClickShare and, of course, Barco owns AWIND), or to design their own from the ground up. Stromeyer explained that Barco spent millions on R&D developing the ClickShare and the company feels like it’s their right to protect their intellectual property. There have been many similar collaboration products announced in recent months, and shown for the first time here at ISE, so we’ll be keeping watch to see what else happens in this space. Stay tuned.