February 15, 2022, ClearOne released the following:
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) yesterday issued a final written decision in case no. PGR2020-00079 confirming the patentability of all claims of U.S. Patent No. 10,728,653 (the "'653 Patent") owned by ClearOne Inc. Shortly after the '653 patent issued in mid-2020, Shure Incorporated initiated the case, but the PTAB rejected every one of Shure's seven challenges.
The '653 Patent covers aspects of ClearOne's innovations in beamforming microphone arrays (BMAs). Specifically, the '653 Patent relates to "a ceiling tile combined with [a] beamforming microphone array" that includes acoustic echo cancellation and "adaptive acoustic processing that automatically adjusts to a room configuration."
"Shure's strategy backfired," said ClearOne president and CEO Zee Hakimoglu. "The PTAB found that the claims of the '653 Patent are clear, broad, well described and enabled, and represent non-obvious improvements over earlier technology."
In an earlier legal dispute, first the PTAB in case no. IPR2017-01785 and then the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit in case no. 201901755 rejected Shure's attempt to invalidate ClearOne's U.S. Patent No. 9,264,553, which covers aspects of ClearOne's revolutionary innovations in beamforming microphone arrays.
February 16, 2022, Shure released the following:
“Shure filed its petition seeking a Post Grant Review on ClearOne's '653 patent with the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board last year because Shure believed that the claims of this patent were invalid and the patent was improperly granted. We continue to believe this today and are considering filing an appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the basis that claims of this patent are invalid, and our belief that ClearOne improperly amended the specification to introduce new matter. Today's ruling regarding the '653 patent has no impact on the availability of our MXA910 ceiling array microphone products. Shure will continue to defend our award winning, patented MXA910 products against copycat products and any assertions of infringement by ClearOne with respect to its meritless patent claims.”
