The case claimed that WideBand Solutions had misappropriated ClearOne’s intellectual property. Biamp Systems says that it was named as a co-defendant on the basis of a licence agreement with WideBand Solutions.
The final judgment issued by the United States District Court of Central Utah in Salt Lake City on 20 April follows hot on the heels of a permanent injunction granted on 9 April which prohibits WideBand Solutions from any of the intellectual property, including the AEC-2W algorithm previously licensed to Biamp Systems. Biamp says that it never possessed or had access to the source code for that algorithm, and ceased using it in 2006. As of the same year, all of Biamp’s products have contained its own, internally developed code.
While Biamp insists that its current products, services and technologies are “unaffected” by the outcome, 22 April brought the announcement that it would file an appeal.
Ralph Lockhart (pictured), president of Biamp Systems, told II: “For Biamp Systems, there is a huge sense of relief that the court has issued a final judgment as we are anxious to get this case out of Salt Lake City and into appeals. With a new venue in appeals court, we will have an objective, unencumbered view of this case. We had absolutely no knowledge of any misappropriation, and we feel this judgment was not supported by the evidence. We are confident a higher court will agree with us.”
As for the other players in the case, ClearOne Communications has posted on a releases on its website saying that it intends to “vigorously pursue” collection of the cited $9.7million in damages. WideBand Solutions has yet to issue a formal response, although a brief posting on its homepage suggests that an appeal is likely.
