The ongoing spat between chip manufacturers Qualcomm and Broadcom continues this week, but Qualcomm’s managed to stem the tide of litigations a fair bit. A US Court of Appeals has ruled that two out of Broadcom’s eight initial charges would be able to proceed in court, even though the whole thing was put to bed in August 2006 by a District Court. The dismissed charges involved CDMA chips and Qualcomm’s acquisition of OFDM/OFDMA developer Flarion. Broadcom has already locked down a chip ban, but Qualcomm still has some fight left. We’ll keep you posted on the next move in this bitter grudge match.
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It looks like Atari’s none too happy about BrickBreaker, the game that’s been preloaded on BlackBerrys since the 7200, and has been pursuing legal action. The resemblance to Atari’s Breakout is noticeable, and you can hardly blame Atari for the litigation. RIM has no doubt enjoyed the enterprise popularity in the game, and by association mobile games have likely seen a boost in visibility. Two weeks ago, Superior Court Judge Harvey Spiegel motioned for the case to be moved to the Superior Court of Ontario in Toronto.
Lou Lupin, Qualcomm’s legal counsel and senior VP must have been putting in some hefty overtime lately. In fact, the increasingly one-sided battle highlighted by yesterday’s ruling that Qualcomm pay Broadcom $39.3 million probably caused him to resign. Qualcomm’s starting to feel its teeth rattle as a result of the battery it’s taken over the last couple of weeks, mainly with Broadcom winning a video compression patent issue and the lack of progress being made on the power management patent front. A recent addition to Qualcomm, Carol Lam, will be taking up the reigns until a full replacement can be found.
Qualcomm takes a second hit today, now with a federal judge ruling that Qualcomm had hidden video compression patents until deciding to sue Broadcom for using them. As a result, Qualcomm had waived its rights to legally protect the patents, and on top of that the judge has ordered them to pay Broadcom’s legal fees. Ouch. Paired up with The Feds giving Qualcomm no mercy, it’s been a rough day for the bearded industry giant.
Qualcomm’s fight against its US chip ban takes a hit, as the Bush administration sticks by the ITC’s decision. Earlier, Qualcomm was really hoping that federal intervention could get them back in the saddle, but it looks like they’ll have to find another way around the issue. The ban is on select power management chips, so they can still do business in the US (heck, they’re the number one chip maker), but this is still a serious blow. While more appeals are likely to follow, sooner or later Qualcomm will run out of authorities to turn to. We’ll keep you posted on what happens next in this ongoing struggle.
Sprint and Qualcomm might be getting chummy to slug it through this power management chip ban in the U.S., but Verizon’s going with the other side, and is liscencing Broadcom’s opposing patents for $6 per 1xEVDO device. Broadcom stands to make up to $200 million from the deal, maxing out at $40 million per quarter. With that, it sounds like everybody’s got their tag teams set up and the battle lines are drawn. In the red corner, we’ve got Qualcomm and Sprint, in the blue corner Verizon and Broadcom. Bush has sent an aide to look over the International Trade Comission ban, which could end the fight early if in Qualcomm’s favour, and should have an answer by August 6th.
