Broadcom announced yesterday that it won an injunction against rival Qualcomm Incorporated for patent infringement by Qualcomm. Honorable James V. Selna, United States District Court Judge for Central District of California handed down the ruling yesterday.
Judge Selna hit Qualcomm with an injunction barring any further import of product infringing on Broadcom patents into the United States (PDF). This latest injunction marks the second Broadcom win against Qualcomm with the first injunction issued in June of 2007 barring 3G phones using Qualcomm chips from entering the United States.
The patents at the core of this new suit include Broadcom’s U.S. patent numbers 6,847,686, 5,657,317, and 6,389,010. The injunction for the violation of the first patent bars Qualcomm from making, using, selling, offering for sale and importing 3G WCDMA and EV-DO chips in its “Enhanced Multimedia” and “Convergence Platforms.” The judge also ordered Qualcomm to pay Broadcom a royalty of 6% of all revenues from found to infringe on patent number 6,847,686.
Patent 5,657,317, also covered in the injunction, prevents Qualcomm from making, selling, offering for sale and importing EV-DO chips infringing the patent and prevents Qualcomm from using Broadcom technology allowing for the simultaneous use of two networks or more at the same time by a device. In addition to the injunction, Qualcomm was also ordered to pay Broadcom 4.5% royalty on all revenues from infringing products.
The final patent number 6,389,010 bars Qualcomm from using, selling, offering for sale and importing cellular devices using Qualcomm's QChat “push-to-talk” software; and from developing new software that infringes the same patent. The royalty that Qualcomm will pay Broadcom has yet to be determined by the court.
The injunction allows Qualcomm to continue selling in the U.S. infringing legacy products using EV-DO chips to legacy customers from May 29, 2007 to January 31, 2009.