ITC Denies Request to Stay Exclusion Order against Qualcomm Products Found to Infringe Broadcom Patent

(Business News & Technology News, 25 Jun 2007)

Broadcom Corp recently announced announced that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has denied a request by Qualcomm Inc. to stay the effectiveness of the ITC's recent exclusion order, which bans the importation into the United States of certain Qualcomm chips and cellular phones containing those chips that infringe a Broadcom patent.

Last year, an ITC administrative law judge and later the Commission itself found that Qualcomm's cellular baseband chips infringe five claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,714,983, which relates generally to power conservation in cellular phones. On June 7 the six-member Commission issued its Final Determination on a remedy for Qualcomm's infringement, ordering that certain Qualcomm chips, and future downstream products such as cellular phones that incorporate those chips, that infringe Broadcom's patent be barred from importation into the U.S. The ITC also entered a Cease and Desist Order prohibiting Qualcomm from engaging in certain activities related to the infringing chips.

"The protection of intellectual property is essential to American competitiveness and innovation in global markets, particularly in this age of advanced technology and huge worldwide consumer demand for electronic devices and equipment," said David A. Dull, Broadcom's Senior Vice President and General Counsel. "So far, Qualcomm has been found to infringe four different Broadcom patents, one tried in the ITC and three others tried before a federal jury last month in Santa Ana, Calif., which also found Qualcomm's infringement to be willful. In its proceeding, the ITC constructed a balanced compromise remedy following months of exhaustive study, mountains of evidence and two days of hearings. The ITC went to great lengths to provide a remedy that limited Qualcomm's on-going infringement without harming public heath and safety, competitive conditions in the U.S. economy, or U.S. consumers."

Dull continued: "As we have said before, Broadcom simply wants to be adequately compensated for the use of our intellectual property and to be able to compete fairly in the cellular markets on the merits and innovation of our products and technologies, as we do in every other market in which we compete. Yet Qualcomm, which collects about $3 billion a year from licensing its own patent portfolio and itself uses the ITC as a forum against competitors, refuses to provide appropriate compensation for the use of our I.P. We have repeatedly communicated to Qualcomm our readiness to negotiate a lasting resolution to these issues¡ªthus far to no avail. The burden of resolving these matters rests squarely with Qualcomm."

Broadcom