Qualcomm again found in contempt in Broadcom spat

Despite a recent overturning of a ban on Qualcomm chip sales, the company is once again found in contempt of an injunction of 3G cellular phone chip patents held by wired and wireless semiconductors maker Broadcom. Broadcom announced on Tuesday that a federal judge on Monday found Qualcomm in contempt of an injunction agreed to last November preventing it from shipping products using two Broadcom patents.

US District Court Judge James V. Selna has specifically ruled that Qualcomm broke an injunction by selling new EVDO chips to mobile handset makers and failing to pay Broadcom royalties on legacy EVDO chip sales. The judge has ordered Qualcomm to retrieve and destroy the chips it was forbidden to sell, or pass along all of its gross profits made on the sales to Broadcom. As for the legacy chips, Broadcom was ordered to pay past royalties as well as a penalty. The judge also ruled to have Qualcomm take steps to prevent further violations and awarded Broadcom its legal fees.

Previously, in August, Qualcomm allegedly violated an injunction by failing to pay royalties on Broadcom's patent of QChat products for push-to-talk phones.

Filed under: industry, gadgets
Other story tags: Qualcomm, Broadcom, QChat