Qualcomm has bad week on the patent front

Broadcom continues to punish Qualcomm on the patent front. The CDMA innovator, which derives much of its revenues from licensing CDMA-based patents, was dealt a blow by the Bush administration this week. The president let stand the U.S. International Trade Commission ruling that bans the import of certain mobile phones containing Qualcomm 1xEV-DO and WCDMA chips. The ITC previously ruled that the chips infringed on Broadcom patents.

Qualcomm has vowed to pursue an appeal and stay request with the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The company says it is working on a software workaround solution to circumvent Broadcom's patents. Sprint says it is developing a workaround solution too. This all sounds too much like the Research in Motion/NTP patent fight [1].

Meanwhile, a federal judge ruled that Qualcomm engaged in "aggravated litigation abuse" and waived its rights to enforce certain video transmission technology patents related to the H.264 video compression standard used in some high definition products. The court ordered Qualcomm to pay all of Broadcom's fees and costs in defending the patent infringement case.

For more about Qualcomm's patent woes:
- read this piece [2] from FierceWireless
- take a look at this article [3] from bizjournals.com