Datapoint Corp’s ambitions to sue the entire videoconferencing industry over alleged patent infringements suffered a blow earlier this month when a 10 member jury unanimously agreed that PictureTel Corp had not infringed its patents, and that the patent claims asserted against PictureTel were invalid. Datapoint had sought up to $200m in damages against PictureTel. San Antonio, Texas-based Datapoint filed a patent infringement suit against Intel Corp last year, later amending its claims to name Pacific Bell Corp, Dell Computer Corp and Hayes Microcomputer Corp as part of a class action suit (CI No 3,299). It claimed that the common idea of a videoconferencing network where data, voice and video flow through a multipoint connector unit and hubs is its proprietary design. After filing the Intel suit, Datapoint’s lawyers came to the conclusion that roughly 500 companies involved in videoconferencing – from manufacturers to communications providers and resellers – could all be accused of using its design in one way or another. The separate PictureTel class action suit was filed on March 20. Datapoint has now filed a notice of appeal against the decision at the District Court in Dallas, Texas. Datapoint maintains it invented distributed video conferencing, and currently offers a line of room, group, desktop and networked video conferencing products. It says its business is not being affected by the lawsuits, and that operations continue to meet company expectations for the fiscal year.
