No cookie for Qualcomm as injunction breached

Qualcomm is planning to appeal after a court found it in breach of an injunction related to infringements of Broadcom patents.

Qualcomm was found in the District Court for the Central District of California to have breached the ruling in two areas: support for devices sold in breach of Broadcom's patents before the original ruling last December, and royalties accumulated by Qualcomm for their QChat software, version 3.

In a rather more petty ruling, the court also decided that Qualcomm employees should give up handsets that they received last year, or at least those models since found to be in breach of Broadcom's patent.

"Over the past two years, Qualcomm has been found to have infringed four Broadcom patents, abused the standards-setting process, and committed gross discovery misconduct, and now has been held in contempt of a court-ordered injunction," said Broadcom Vice President David Rosmann.

Qualcomm reckons the support issue is all due to a simple misunderstanding, but even they have a hard time explaining why they've not handed over money from QChat. The latest version works around Broadcom's patent, but version 3 generated considerable income for the company - Reuters reckons $93 million - and profits from that are now owed to Broadcom.

Qualcomm has said it'll appeal both decisions, but in the interim they'll have to hand over some cash. Both companies have asked for parts of the ruling to be kept confidential - making the true complexity of this ongoing spat increasingly tricky to gauge. ®