ClearOne (News - Alert) Communications Inc. has reportedly been granted a temporary restraining order which prohibits Georgia-based DialHD Inc., as well as two individuals, Donald Bowers of Georgia and David Sullivan of Connecticut, from using its intellectual property – that is, the patented signaling technology used in ClearOne’s HD audio conferencing products.

 

The restraining order, issued by a federal court in Utah, expands an earlier permanent injunction prohibiting Biamp Systems Corporation and a group of defendants collectively termed as the "WideBand (News - Alert) Defendants" -- consisting of WideBand Solutions, Inc., Versatile DSP, Inc. and three of WideBand's principals, Jun Yang, Andrew Chiang and Lonny Bowers -- from using ClearOne’s technology in their products. Yang is a former ClearOne employee and Chiang was previously affiliated with an entity that sold certain assets to ClearOne.

In November of 2008, a federal jury decided in favor of ClearOne in its intellectual property case against Biamp Systems -- and in April of this year the court imposed a settlement of approximately $9.7 million, including punitive and compensatory damages. In addition, under the injunction, Biamp Systems and WideBand Solutions are prohibited from marketing or selling products that include ClearOne’s technology either in part or in whole. Officals at WideBand Solutions/Biamp Systems have said they will appeal the decision.
 

In seeking the new temporary restraining order, ClearOne’s attorneys alleged that the WideBand Defendants were working in concert with Lonny Bowers' father, Donald Bowers, to circumvent the court's permanent injunction by establishing a new company named DialHD, and continue to sell products containing ClearOne's trade secrets.

Based on the defendants’ activities the court decided that there is a “substantial likelihood” that they would try to use ClearOne’s technology in DialHD products as well. The court therefore issued a temporary restraining order that prohibits DialHD and its principals from using ClearOne’s “Honeybee Code,” either in part or in its entirety, in DialHD products. In addition the company is prohibited from marketing or selling any existing products which use the technology.

“ClearOne has demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of its claim that the DialHD infringing products illegally utilize the Honeybee Code in the same or similar fashion to those ‘infringing products’ identified in the court's order granting permanent injunction," court documents state.

 

As per a company press release, the court recognized that there was a "cognizable danger" that future violations would occur, absent an injunction, “and it now appears that such violations have occurred, which necessitate further injunctive relief necessary to protect the trade secret and related interests established at trial."