President quashes hopes of stay on Qualcomm phone ban
updated 10:15 am EDT, Tue August 7, 2007
Qualcomm Loses Appeal
President Bush late yesterday denied Qualcomm's motion to put a hold on a 3G chipset ban relating to its patents, leaving an upcoming block on imports by the International Trade Commission to take effect in the near future. The denial follows a previous rejection by a US federal appeals court of an attempt to overturn the ban, which argued that Qualcomm needed to wait for the mandatory presidential review process before an appeal could begin. Qualcomm said it was "disappointed" with the ruling and would turn to the appeals court again to try and reverse the ban, which would effectively shut down most new imports of Qualcomm-based cellphones using EVDO cellular Internet access.
Broadcom welcomed the decision as a defense of its patents, which it believes Qualcomm infringed by creating certain chipsets. The former has also offered to offer temporary patent licenses to carriers to let them continue business and has already struck a deal with Verizon to allow the provider imports of new phones with the Qualcomm technology, 80 percent of which would have been blocked through the ITC ban. Qualcomm has already been working on updated software which it hopes will allow at least some of its new phones to legally reach the country.
