Qualcomm to Review Accounting Practices
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Qualcomm plans to study whether to change its accounting practices to reflect the growing size and volatility of the mobile communications market.
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Qualcomm Inc. QCOM.O may change the  way it recognizes royalties from its licensees, which would  reduce fourth-quarter pre-tax income by $298 million, the  company said on Friday.
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At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Qualcomm offered a sneak peek of its concept for an ultramobile PC for the largely untapped market where it will meet Intel head on.Qualcomm for the first time demonstrated a prototype of a device reminiscent of Nokia&#39;s N800. Qualcomm calls it a pocketable computer because &quot;if you can&#39;t carry it in your pocket, you can&#39;t carry it with you,&quot; said Sanjay Jha, chief operating officer and president of Qualcomm&#39;s CDMA Technologies Group. The device, which has a slide-out keyboard, runs Windows Mobile, and has HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), GPS (Global Positioning Service), Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.The screen is 800 pixels wide so that most Web sites designed for PCs render nicely, Jha said. That means users could view the regular YouTube.com site, rather than a version of the site designed for mobile phones, he said.The prototype runs on the 7201 chip, a new chip released recently by Qualcomm, but the design is intended to showcase&#160;Qualcomm&#39;s new Snapdragon line of chips. Those chips are now being sampled by hardware vendors, with initial commercial devices expected out this year, he said.Despite the slow take-off of such devices that sit between notebooks and phones -- such as the Samsung Q that runs on Microsoft&#39;s Windows-based ultra-mobile PC platform -- Jha said other factors are finally falling into place to increase their appeal. Faster wireless networks, better processors that require less power and in the near future, the openness of mobile networks and billing plans should increase demand and sales, he said.Still, Qualcomm doesn&#39;t expect that this category of device will approach the widespread adoption of mobile phones. He figures that smartphones make up about 200 million of the entire 1.3 billion handsets on the market. &quot;I think it&#39;s possible to envision a device that sells in that ballpark volume,&quot; Jha said.The chip maker will face Intel in this market, which is also introducing chips for devices that are smaller than laptops but bigger than cell phones. In fact,&#160;Apple is rumored to be developing an ultra-mobile PC product&#160;based on Intel&#39;s processors.&quot;We come at this problem from an understanding of wireless,&quot; Jha said. &quot;Intel comes at it from an understanding of computing. We both bring different things to the table. Time will tell how our vision works versus Intel&#39;s direction.&quot;The companies are also making different bets in terms of wireless network compatibility. &quot;We&#39;re working on WiMax as well but our priority is clearly 3G,&quot; Jha said. Intel, a big backer of WiMax, has said that it may&#160;build WiMax into Menlow, its platform for ultramobile devices, for release some time this year.Nokia&#39;s N800 devices fit into a similar category between a phone and a notebook. Despite the fact that Nokia and Qualcomm are in a bitter licensing dispute, Jha praised the N800, saying it sold more initially than Nokia expected. Nokia has typically declined to reveal sales figures for the devices.Qualcomm doesn&#39;t envision that Snapdragon will only be used in &quot;pocketable computing&quot; devices, the company&#39;s preferred term for what are commonly called ultra-mobile PCs. The chips could be used in navigation devices with wireless connectivity to deliver traffic information to users. Gaming devices, dedicated Internet devices or gadgets like Amazon&#39;s digital book-reader Kindle could also use the chips, Jha said.
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A federal judge took action against Qualcomm and six of its outside attorneys on Monday for hiding 46,000 documents in a lawsuit the company filed -- and lost -- against rival Broadcom.Qualcomm sued Broadcom in 2005 alleging violation of two of its patents on video compression technology. The case was one of a string of patent fights between the Southern California communications chip companies, in which&#160;Qualcomm has often come out the loser.Magistrate Judge Barbara Major of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, in San Diego, called Qualcomm&#39;s actions a &quot;monumental and intentional discovery violation.&quot; She referred the attorneys to the State Bar of California for investigation of possible ethics violations and ordered Qualcomm to review its procedures and come up with a plan for collecting evidence in future court cases. She also ordered Qualcomm to pay Broadcom about $8.6 million but said that sum will be reduced by the amount Qualcomm is already paying in damages in the case.&quot;Qualcomm intentionally withheld tens of thousands of decisive documents from its opponent in an effort to win this case and gain a strategic business advantage over Broadcom,&quot; Major wrote in her decision.Part of Broadcom&#39;s defense involved Qualcomm&#39;s involvement in a group that developed the H.264 video compression standard. Qualcomm argued it was not involved in that group, called the Joint Video Team. But the trial revealed that there were e-mail messages and other documents that linked Qualcomm to the group, Major wrote. Although Qualcomm&#39;s attorneys did find documents that supported or didn&#39;t hurt its own side in the case, they didn&#39;t find this evidence that hurt its argument, she wrote. The lawyers &quot;used the lack of evidence to repeatedly and forcefully make false statements and arguments to the court and jury,&quot; Major wrote.Qualcomm has never produced any evidence to explain or justify its not producing the documents, the ruling said.&quot;Qualcomm regrets the discovery errors that occurred in this case. However, as we pointed out in our brief to the appellate court, when Qualcomm discovered additional documents after the trial, it produced them and apologized to the court and Broadcom for the errors. These actions defy any suggestion that Qualcomm engaged in intentional misconduct. We are considering our options, including further appeal,&quot; Qualcomm said in a prepared statement.Last October, after Broadcom sought sanctions against it for the violations, Qualcomm argued that&#160;it had failed to produce the documents because its legal team was disjointed&#160;and engineers at the company didn&#39;t understand technical standards-setting procedures.
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Qualcomm Inc. QCOM.O, a maker of  chips used in mobile phones, on Friday said it may change the  way it recognizes royalties from licensees, which would reduce  fourth-quarter pretax income by $298 million.
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Wireless chip supplier Qualcomm Inc   said on Wednesday it would be hurt in the short term  by a court injunction on the sale of chips infringing rival  Broadcom Corp's  patents, but it promised to have  alternative products in phones before the end of the quarter.
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A new licensing deal with Trimble could assist in Qualcomm negotiations.
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Qualcomm Inc. Friday raised its earnings and revenue forecasts for the current quarter, based on higher shipments of its cell-phone chips.
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tocks ended higher yesterday after Ford Motor raised its earnings forecasts but gains on the Nasdaq were checked after the wireless technology provider Qualcomm said an accounting review might reduce pretax income.
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Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM.O: Quote, Profile, Research) may change the way it recognizes royalties from its licensees, which would reduce fourth-quarter pre-tax income by $298 million, the company said on Friday.
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U.S. conglomerate General Electric Co   is expected to make changes to its accounting policies  in a bid to end a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission  probe, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday citing  people familiar with the situation.
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Mobile-device makers are coming under scrutiny as traders brace for earnings reports next week.
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The Securities and Exchange Board of India will examine the legal aspects of alleged insider and unfair trading practices in Reliance Industries&#39; scrip in the wake of RIL vice-chairman and managing director Anil Ambani&#39;s comments before the company&#39;s
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The panel ruled that Qualcomm, a maker of cellphone chips, is infringing a Broadcom Corporation patent on a way to conserve handset battery power.
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Qualcomm is shipping four new wireless chip sets that do not infringe on a video encoding patent held by competitor Broadcom. Qualcomm expects the WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) handsets containing the chips to go on sale in the U.S. by April, it said Wednesday.The announcement comes two days after a&#160;U.S. federal judge issued an injunction&#160;that stops Qualcomm from selling some wireless chipsets found to infringe on the Broadcom patent.Under a special provision of the injunction, Qualcomm can continue to use Broadcom&#39;s patented technology in some existing QChat push-to-talk and 1xEV-DO (Evolution-Data Only) products through Jan. 31, 2009, as long as it pays royalties to Broadcom. New products, or existing products sold to new customers, are not covered by the automatic license.Qualcomm is still developing workarounds for&#160;infringing technology included in the QChat and 1xEV-DO products, it said.Broadcom won a patent infringement suit against Qualcomm&#160;in May and was awarded $19.6 million in damages. However, Broadcom said the injunction -- which only applies to chip sets sold in the U.S. -- was far more important than the money.Monday&#39;s injunction, issued in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, also prohibits Qualcomm from some marketing and customer support activities related to WCDMA and EV-DO chips.Qualcomm said it still wants further clarification on some aspects of the injunction, saying it could affect the company&#39;s product development. The company said it is also considering filing an appeal or for a stay of the injunction.The two companies still have other patent infringement and antitrust claims pending.&#160;
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NEW YORK/WASHINGTON  - Wireless chipmaker Qualcomm Inc.  on Thursday raised its estimates for the current quarter, but a new investigation related to a patent dispute showed it was still mired in legal woes.
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(InfoWorld) - A German court stayed a patent-infringement case that Qualcomm filed against Nokia, as hearings regarding a similar case in the U.S. International Trade Commission suit continue. On Tuesday, the District Court of Dusseldorf, Germany, ordered a stay of proceedings until further notice based on a request by Qualcomm, Nokia said. A hearing in that case had been scheduled for Tuesday. Meanwhile, hearings for theÂ patent-infringement case that Qualcomm brought against NokiaÂ in the U.S. ITC started on Monday and will last until Sept. 24. At issue are patents Qualcomm owns related to power control used in EDGE (Enhanced Data GSM Environment) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service). The initial ITC complaint included six Qualcomm patents, but Qualcomm later reduced the complaint to cover just three. Qualcomm initially declared one of the patents as essential to the standards, but later withdrew the essentiality declaration, according to Nokia. Qualcomm did identify the patent as one that may be essential, but after further investigation determined that it wasn't, said Alex Rogers, legal counsel for Qualcomm. But that issue is irrelevant to this case, he said, which charges Nokia with patent infringement. The hearings this week are dedicated to Qualcomm testimony and has included participation by Chuck Wheatley and Ana Weiland, former Qualcomm developers who worked on the patented technology, Rogers said. Nokia will also have five days to present its witnesses. The mobile giant will argue that it does not infringe on the patents and that the patents are invalid, it said. The judge will issue an initial determination after the hearings are complete. The commission then has an opportunity to accept or modify the judge's decision and issue a final determination. The U.S. ITC case is one ofÂ several ongoing suits between Qualcomm and Nokia. In August,Â Nokia asked the ITCÂ to launch a separate investigation, charging Qualcomm with patent infringement. In June, Nokia charged Qualcomm with infringing on patents in its MediaFlo and Brew products. In a statement in May, Nokia said that Qualcomm has filed 11 patent suits against Nokia in just over a year and a half. The ongoing dispute between the companies likely stems from their failure to renegotiate their patent licensing agreement that expired in April. Nokia has said that it believes Qualcomm, which is well-known for its development of the CDMA wireless technologies, charges more than fair and reasonable rates when licensing the technology to be used in standards-based equipment. In a separate intellectual-property battle, theÂ ITC recently banned the importÂ of mobile phones with certain Qualcomm chips, based on a case Broadcom filed.