Qualcomm, Broadcom each gain in latest court rulings

The long-standing and bitter patent disputes between Broadcom and Qualcomm moved a bit forward Friday, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued several rulings that give some success to each side.

In Broadcom's favor, the appeals court vacated part of a ruling that had been previously found in Qualcomm's favor. The previous ruling, which had been issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission, was that eight Qualcomm chip products did not violate a Broadcom patent for sending and receiving RF signals.  In its decision Friday, the appeals court revived Broadcom's claim about this patent with regard to one of the Qualcomm chips and sent that particular case back to the ITC. It upheld the ITC ruling in Qualcomm's favor pertaining to the other seven chips, affirming that those seven products did not infringe on Broadcom's patent.

Also in Qualcomm's favor, the appeals court upheld another ITC ruling that the eight Qualcomm chips do not violate a Broadcom patent pertaining to power saving.

The appeals court has yet to rule on Qualcomm's appeal of a prior, more sensational ITC decision that banned the sale in the U.S. of cell phone products built with Qualcomm chips that were ruled to infringe on yet another Broadcom patent.

Last month, a Santa Ana, Calif. federal judge ruled Qualcomm violated an injunction against infringing on three Broadcom patents Qualcomm has been found to use in certain QChat push-to-talk technologies, and the judge ordered Qualcomm to pay the appropriate royalties to Broadcom.  In July, Qualcomm and Nokia, which also fought over patent rights for many years, finally settled their differences, to the relief of investors and vendors.

 For more:
- see the LA Times [1]

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