Broadcom has slender victory in Qualcomm patent spat

WASHINGTON, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Broadcom (BRCM.O) won a slender victory over Qualcomm (QCOM.O) on Friday as an appeals court vacated in part a ruling that Qualcomm was innocent of infringing a cell-phone patent.

The U.S. International Trade Commission had previously ruled that Qualcomm did not infringe either of the patents at issue in this case, two of five heard in the original case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday vacated the non-infringement determination of a patent related to circuits for sending and receiving signals and sent that portion of the case back to the ITC. It affirmed the ruling of non-infringement of a patent related to power saving.

Broadcom had initially accused Qualcomm of infringing five patents in its case filed with the trade commission, and court battles are pending over the other three.

The ITC had declined to rule on two patents on the grounds that they are before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

The third, a patent on technology that also helps cell phone chips use less power, remains before the Federal Circuit. Arguments were heard in July.

The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled last year that Broadcom owns that patent, and that Qualcomm is wrongly selling chips for telephones that contain its technology.

In June 2007, the ITC, which hears patent cases involving imports, banned U.S. sales of some cell phone models that contain infringing Qualcomm chips. That order was stayed, to Broadcom's irritation.

Broadcom has asked for the exclusion order to be implemented, which could result in BlackBerries and other advanced cell phones being banned for sale in the United States.

Three wireless service providers and 16 manufacturers have joined Qualcomm in asking for the exclusion order to be cancelled.

The companies included Kyocera Wireless, Motorola (MOT.N), Samsung (005930.KS), LG Electronics (066570.KS), Sanyo Fisher, T-Mobile, AT&T (T.N), Sprint Nextel (S.N), Palm (PALM.O) and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM.TO)." (Reporting by Diane Bartz, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)