QUALCOMM Waived Rights to Enforce Video Compression Patents Asserted Against Broadcom

(Business News & Technology News, 10 Aug 2007)

QUALCOMM Inc. has announced that a federal judge in San Diego has ruled that QUALCOMM waived its rights to enforce certain patents related to the H.264 video compression standard used in some high definition products. The court held that QUALCOMM had deliberately concealed U.S. Patent Nos. 5,452,104 and 5,576,767 from the standard setting body responsible for developing the H.264 standard and therefore QUALCOMM was precluded from enforcing the patents. The order follows a hearing held in June to determine remedies on the waiver issue in the case. The court also held that QUALCOMM committed misconduct during the litigation by, among other things, failing to produce thousands of relevant documents until after the trial. In a separate order, the Court ordered QUALCOMM to pay Broadcom's attorneys' fees and costs of suit.

QUALCOMM acknowledges the seriousness of the Court's findings and reiterates its previous apology to the Court for the errors made during discovery and for the inaccurate testimony of certain of its witnesses. QUALCOMM respectfully disagrees with the Court's conclusion that there were unwritten disclosure obligations above and beyond those set forth in the written rules of the standard setting body or that QUALCOMM intended to mislead the H.264 standards setting organization or the court with respect to the two patents it asserted against Broadcom. QUALCOMM intends to appeal the Court's ruling.

Qualcomm