US 10904487

US Patent 10904487: Integration of Videoconferencing with Interactive Electronic Whiteboard Appliances

Title: Integration of videoconferencing with interactive electronic whiteboard appliances

Assignee: Ricoh Co Ltd

Inventors: Steven Nelson, Lana Wong, Hiroshi Kitada

Filing Date: July 10, 2019

Issue Date: January 26, 2021

Abstract: The patent describes an interactive whiteboard appliance designed to integrate and manage interactive electronic whiteboard sessions and videoconferencing sessions in a user-friendly manner. An application manager on the whiteboard appliance controls an interactive whiteboard application and a collaboration client, ensuring that a videoconferencing session window is maintained on top of an interactive whiteboard session window during videoconferencing. This application manager also provides graphical user interface controls that allow users to initiate and manage these sessions, including switching between them. This approach is intended for interactive whiteboard appliances not inherently configured to allow users to easily switch between these types of windows.

---

Plain-Language Overview of Independent Claims:

Independent Claim 1 (Whiteboard Device):
This claim describes a physical whiteboard device equipped with a display, a network interface, processors, and memory. The memory stores instructions that cause the device to perform the following key actions:

1. Display an interactive whiteboard session window, which includes a content area, on its screen.
2. Overlay a menu on this interactive whiteboard window. This menu is used to receive a command to start a video conference.
3. Once the command to start a video conference is received via the overlaid menu, display a separate videoconference window, also overlaid on the interactive whiteboard session window.

Independent Claim 8 (Non-Transitory Computer-Readable Media):
This claim covers one or more non-transitory computer-readable media (e.g., a hard drive, flash memory) that store instructions. When these instructions are processed by one or more processors, they cause a whiteboard device to perform the same actions as described in Claim 1:

1. Display an interactive whiteboard session window with a content area on the device's display.
2. Overlay a selection menu on this whiteboard window for initiating a video conference.
3. After receiving the instruction to start a video conference from this menu, overlay a videoconference window on top of the interactive whiteboard session window.

Independent Claim 15 (Computer-Implemented Method):
This claim outlines a computer-implemented method that involves the following steps:

1. Displaying an interactive whiteboard session window, which includes a content area, on the display of a whiteboard device. A selection menu for starting a video conference is overlaid on this whiteboard window.
2. After receiving an instruction to start a video conference through the overlaid selection menu, displaying a videoconference window, also overlaid on the interactive whiteboard session window.

---

Litigation Status:

The patent family associated with US10904487B2 has litigation activity, with a U.S. case filed in the Delaware District Court (case number 1:25-cv-01095). [cite: The full patent text mentions litigation directly, and references a Unified Patents link for a case in Delaware District Court.] As of April 26, 2026, no specific dockets related to US10904487B2 were found in the 2026 dockets of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC).