Nokia wins one round in Qualcomm IP battle
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Just when it appeared Qualcomm finally had a fight on its hands after winning one round last month against Nokia, a judge has invalidated a good chunk of Qualcomm's original injunction request against the handset maker.
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(InfoWorld) - Qualcomm and Broadcom have settled some of their patent claims against each other, avoiding a jury trial scheduled to begin next month, Qualcomm said on Friday. They remainÂ deadlocked over other patents, however, and still face several potential trials this year. The chip makers have been battling in court since 2005, whenÂ Broadcom accusedÂ Qualcomm of infringing 10 of its technology patents.Â Qualcomm respondedÂ with its own infringement suit and the companies have been at loggerheads ever since. They have now agreed to dismiss all claims against each other relating to two of Broadcom's patents and two of Qualcomm's patents, Qualcomm said. The agreement means that one of their infringement lawsuits in San Diego Federal Court will be dropped, and a trial scheduled there for March 5 has been dismissed, Qualcomm said. Other cases in San Diego and in Orange County, California, remain unresolved, and the companies still have at least four other jury trials scheduled this year, Qualcomm said. Broadcom could not immediately be reached for comment on the matter. Separately, Qualcomm said an antitrust suit brought against it and several other technology companies by Golden Bridge Technology had been dismissed on Feb. 16. The suit, which also named Motorola, Nokia, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic, and the former Lucent Technologies, accused the companies of conspiring to exclude Golden Bridge's technology from a wireless industry standard. The court determined that there was no evidence that the defendants had acted improperly, according to Qualcomm. Golden Bridge Technology could not immediately be reached.
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Nokia , the world's biggest  mobile phone maker, said on Tuesday the United States  International Trade Commission (ITC) has ordered a stay of  wireless chip supplier Qualcomm's  suit against Nokia.
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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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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. International Trade Commission said that QualcommÂ is infringing on one of Broadcom's patents, dealing a blow to Qualcomm in anÂ ongoing patent battleÂ between the companies. The Commission hasn't yet issued a penalty for the infringement and Qualcomm pledged to appeal the decision. The companies are in the midst of many other lawsuits with each other regarding cell phone patents. Broadcom said the Commission could bar Qualcomm from importing its chips to the U.S., forbid Qualcomm from selling the infringing products in the U.S., and even ban the import of phones containing the chips. But Qualcomm says that the Administrative Law Judge, who made the initial ruling that was upheld by the Commission, has recommended against barring the import of phones that use the chips. The Commission made its ruling on Friday and both Qualcomm and Broadcom released statements on Monday. The Commission will issue its remedy decision by Feb. 9. Qualcomm has downplayed the importance of the technology in question, saying it is based on software and not fundamental to CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), the mobile technology that Qualcomm created and is best known for. Qualcomm has said previously that it is exploring ways to work around the technology. The two companies have several other outstanding cases against each other. One is set to be tried in March, another in May, and a third doesn't yet have a trial date set. Broadcom is also appealing an antitrust suit that it filed against Qualcomm which has been dismissed. Broadcom is also one of five technology companies that filedÂ anticompetitive complaints against QualcommÂ with the European Commission. Â
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Nokia  and Qualcomm   agreed to look for ways in which a U.S. court in  Delaware could solve some wider, international issues in the  major legal battle between the two technology heavyweights.
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The world's top cellphone maker Nokia  said on Tuesday the U.S. International Trade Commission has decided to start investigating Qualcomm Inc's  trade practices and alleged patent infringement.
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Nokia has taken legal action against  small European handset makers Sagem and Vitelcom on allegations  of patent infringements, the world's largest mobile phone maker  said on Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - NokiaÂ has signed a licensing deal with Trimble Navigation that gives the mobile phone maker access to hundreds of technology patents for providing location-based services. The deal could also strengthen Nokia's hand in license negotiations with other companies. The deal with Trimble, announced Monday, gives Nokia the rights to almost 700 Trimble technology patents for use in Nokia products, said Waldemar Sakalus, director of business development for Nokia's mobile phone group. Nokia also gets the exclusive right to sublicense the patents to other companies in the wireless industry, he said. In return, Trimble gets a nonexclusive license to use Nokia's own location-based technology patents in its own commercial products. Location-based services allow operators to pinpoint the location of a customer using GPS (Global Positioning System) and other technologies, and then deliver services based on that information, such as finding a nearby hotel or providing driving directions. "It's a field we believe will become more and more important and which carries a lot of business opportunities," Sakalus said. Just last weekÂ NokiaÂ announced its new N95 phone, which comes with integrated GPS capabilities, he noted. Having the exclusive rights to sublicense Trimble's patents could also strengthen Nokia's hand when it comes to negotiating license deals with other companies, Sakalus acknowledged. That could come in handy for Nokia as it tries to resolve aÂ licensing dispute with QualcommÂ over Nokia's use of some key Qualcomm wireless technologies. Nokia has complained that Qualcomm is demanding royalty payments for its technology that are too high, while Qualcomm has accused Nokia of patent infringement. Nokia's current agreement to use Qualcomm's patents expires in the first half of next year. If the Trimble patents strengthen Nokia's negotiating position with third parties then that would be a nice benefit, but that is not it's main motivation for the deal with Trimble, according to Sakalus. He did not refer to Qualcomm specifically. The objective's main deal is to gain access to a broad set of patents in a field that Nokia sees as important and growing, he said. Most of Trimble's customers are in industries such as agriculture and construction, and by sublicensing the patents Nokia can make them more available to the mobile industry, he said. The deal involved a financial payment along with the patent sharing aspect, but the companies aren't providing details. The terms will not materially affect the finances of either company, they said. Trimble's patents deal with location-based services based on GPS; assisted GPS, which uses additional servers to amplify GPS signals in urban areas; and Galileo, the European satellite navigation network. Nokia is still deciding whether it will license them separately or as part of its general portfolio of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) patents, Sakalus said. He said he saw "no problem" with licensing the patents to rival phone makers. Nokia has said that it currently pays more in technology licensing fees then it receives. It hopes to grow its patents portfolio and eventually make patent licensing a profitable part of its business.
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The legal battle between Nokia and Qualcomm further heated up on Monday as Nokia sued over patent infringement in the chipmaker's MediaFLO and BREW technologies.
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Nokia and Qualcomm continue to encourage their lawyers to fight diversionary court battles as the two largest players in the wireless market continue to operate without a patent licensing agreement.
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Competitors say industry leader, Nokia, is still vulnerable to the vagaries of the cellphone business, with its fickle consumers and aggressive challengers.
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(InfoWorld) - Despite attacks on its business model, including a particularly rancorous battle with Nokia, Qualcomm said its revenue will be higher than expected for its fiscal second quarter. Instead of pro forma revenue of $2 billion to $2.1 billion, Qualcomm expects to report $2.1 billion to $2.2 billion for its second quarter, which ends April 1. The new estimate is based on better-than-expected shipments of Qualcomm's Mobile Station Modem chips as well as CDMA2000 (Code Division Multiple Access) and WCDMA (Wideband CDMA) chips. Despite growing mobile phone penetration in Europe and North America, sales of CDMA2000 and WCDMA were particularly strong in those regions, Qualcomm said. Qualcomm competitor Texas InstrumentsÂ (TI) doesn't expect to have done quite as well in the quarter. On Monday, TI revised its expectations for revenue in the first quarter of this year to be potentially lower. Instead of $3.01 billion to $3.28 billion, TI said revenue will likely fall between $3.07 billion and $3.22 billion. Qualcomm's raised expectations come amid attacks on its business. A group of vendors, including Nokia, filed a complaint with the European Commission in late 2005 charging Qualcomm with anticompetitive behavior. Nokia and others claim that Qualcomm isn't licensing its technology that contributes to certain industry standards on a fair basis, as promised. Qualcomm is also involved in renegotiations with Nokia regarding their contract, which expires April 7. That renegotiation process has been marred by patent infringement lawsuits that Qualcomm has filed against Nokia in France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy, as well as with the International Trade Commission. Qualcomm has also been at battle with chipmaker Broadcom. The two settled some of their patent claims against each other recently but are still arguing over others. Qualcomm expects additional solid growth in the future in part due to a couple of developments. The GSM Association chose an LG Electronics handset that uses a Qualcomm chipset in a contest to supply a low-cost 3G phone to participating operators around the globe. In addition, Verizon WirelessÂ and AT&T have said they'll use Qualcomm's mobile TV platform.
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Qualcomm  Chief Executive Paul  Jacobs said on Thursday that talks with Nokia (NOK1V.HE) on  renewing a technology license may be helped by AT&T Inc.'s   decision to use Qualcomm's mobile television technology.
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A judge has halted legal proceedings in one of Qualcomm Inc.'s complaints that Nokia Corp. violated its wireless-technology patents. The move came as a deadline neared for the two companies to renew a high-stakes licensing agreement.
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Nokia Corp., the world's largest mobile phone maker, said Thursday it has filed a countersuit against Qualcomm Inc. in a patent infringement fight.
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A federal court on Friday dismissed a request by Qualcomm Inc. to delay an import ban on new cell phones containing the company's chips, which were were found to infringe patents held by Broadcom Corp.