 U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decision cancels most claims of Shures beamforming patent.SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 17, 2020 GLOBE NEWSWIRE -- ClearOne NASDAQ:CLRO, a leading global provider of audio and visual communication solutions, announced that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board PTAB of the United States Patent and Trademark Office PTO issued a decision today significantly limiting Shures U.S. Patent No. 9,565,493 the 493 Patent. The 493 Patent was Shures attempt to patent aspects of beamforming microphone arrays BMAs, a technology that ClearOne has pioneered. Shure obtained the 493 Patent in 2017 with 40 claims directed at circular BMA arrays and ceiling-tile-shaped BMAs. ClearOne challenged the patent in 2019 based in part on its own earlier patents as prior art to Shure. The PTAB largely agreed with ClearOne. Todays decision cancels 38 of the 40 claims originally in the 493 Patent. The two surviving original claims are narrow dependent claims relating to circular BMA arrays. Shure also lost all of the original claims directed at ceiling-tile-shaped BMAs in the 493 Patent and was forced to replace all eleven such claims with eleven new narrower claims.Rather than 40 claims, the 493 Patent now has just 13 narrower claims. ClearOne is confident that its products do not infringe those claims, and we believe that the 493 Patent in its present wounded form has no real significance in the market, said ClearOne Chair and CEO Zee Hakimoglu.ClearOnes BMA technology is protected by at least a dozen patents and pending patent applications. ClearOne has asserted that Shure infringes several ClearOne patents, including U.S. Patent No. 9,813,806, which Shure is preliminarily enjoined from infringing and which was a key piece of prior art against the 493 Patent in todays decision. This is another significant victory for ClearOne, added Hakimoglu.The case number at the PTAB is IPR2019-00683, which can be viewed here.About ClearOne ClearOne is a global market leader enabling conferencing, collaboration, and network streaming solutions. The performance and simplicity of its advanced, comprehensive solutions offer unprecedented levels of functionality, reliability, and scalability. Visit ClearOne at Copyright 2020, ClearOne, Inc. All rights reserved. ClearOne, the ClearOne logo, and the names and marks associated with ClearOnes products are trademarks andor service marks of ClearOne, Inc. and are registered andor common-law marks in the United States and various other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. CONTACT: Contact: Bob Griffin Griffin360 1 212 481 3456 x16 