Court says Qualcomm waived right to patent
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge has ruled that Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM.O) waived its rights to enforce two technology patents asserted against rival chip maker Broadcom Corp. (BRCM.O) by concealing documents and patents, the companies said on Tuesday.
Qualcomm is appealing the decision, the latest twist in a series of legal battles between the companies.
The ruling was announced the day after the Bush administration upheld a U.S. government ban against the importation of some phones that include Qualcomm chips found to infringe on a patent owned by Broadcom.
According to the companies, a San Diego court said Qualcomm could not enforce two patents of high-definition video compression technology because it found the company had deliberately concealed two patents from the group that developed the H.264 video standard.
The court also found that Qualcomm committed misconduct during the litigation by failing to produce thousands of relevant documents until after the trial, the companies said.
Both companies said the court had ordered Qualcomm to pay Broadcom attorney fees and costs of lawsuit, but did not say how much money this would involve.
Qualcomm said it acknowledged "the seriousness of the court's findings" and apologized for "errors made" and "the inaccurate testimony of certain of its witnesses."
But the company disputed the court's conclusion that it intended to mislead the standard-setting body or that there were "unwritten disclosure obligations above and beyond those set forth in the written rules" of the standards body.
Broadcom said Qualcomm had filed the patent lawsuit against it "without any prior letter, email, telephone call, or even a smoke signal" offering to license its patent.
Qualcomm is the dominant supplier of chips for phones based on CDMA, a wireless technology widely used in the United States. It also sells chips and licenses based on W-CDMA, a high-speed wireless technology that is popular in Europe and other parts of the world.
The San Diego-based company also faces legal battles with other companies including Finland's Nokia (NOK1V.HE), the world's biggest mobile phone maker. Nokia and Qualcomm are expected to undergo arbitration proceedings as they failed to renew a technology license agreement that expired in April.
Qualcomm shares were down 77 cents, or 1.8 percent, at $41.01 on Nasdaq, where Broadcom was off 64 cents, or 1.9 percent, at $32.80.
(Reporting by Sinead Carew and Franklin Paul)
