Barco Legally Seizes KanexPro’s New MyTurn Products at ISE, Plans to Sue KanexPro for Patent Infringement
Like a scene form a legal drama on TV, a Dutch judge has granted Barco’s petition to seize all wireless presentation systems of the US-based company KanexPro (marketed as the MyTurn Presentation System), at Integrated Systems Expo in Amsterdam, today, the opening day of ISE. But, that’s not the big story here. What happened next is: A bailiff approached the KanexPro booth at ISE today with the order to seize all infringing materials present at the show to be used as evidence in a patent infringement lawsuit — right in front of everyone in the booth at KanexPro.
As everyone in the AV industry likely knows by now, in April 2012, Barco launched ClickShare, the industry’s first wireless collaboration (aka BYOD) presentation system. It allows for wireless presentation and collaboration via the use of what Barco calls ClickShare “buttons.”
Barco alleges that KanexPro copied parts of the ClickShare patented technologies. And, a Dutch judge agreed and KanexPro is here at ISE without one of their flagship products to demo.
Since 2012, Barco has expanded the ClickShare into a handful of models that include everything from a portable, traveling-presenter unit to an installable, business-focused model for large meeting rooms. ClickShare has been praised by users, resellers and the press, and has won several industry awards including our own Readers’ Choice Awards (2014, 2015 and 2016). And today Barco used ISE to launch a new ClickShare in the form of the CSE-800 – an enterprise version of ClickShare with two 4K outputs, leader moderation, black boarding and annotation.
Barco told rAVe that to “protect the efforts put in the research, development and marketing of Barco’s innovative technology, Barco has secured a strong portfolio of both utility and model patents and registered ClickShare as a trademark in various jurisdictions.”
Barco also told us tonight that they will now use the units seized (from the KanexPro booth at ISE) as evidence for patent infringement lawsuits against KanexPro in the Netherlands, the U.S. and any other jurisdictions where KanexPro commercializes its wireless presentation system. Barco is also closely monitoring other potential infringers in Europe, the Americas and APAC and will take the necessary steps to prevent others from copying Barco’s patented technology.
The story we wrote announcing the KanexPro MyTurn system back last month is here.
The story we wrote recently on the new Barco CSE-800 is here.