Both Broadcom and Qualcomm are doing their very best to declare a US court ruling as a major victory this week, and used the 3GSM show as a platform for announcements.
Broadcom claimed victory because the US court cleared the way for Samsung and Panasonic to continue using Broadcom’s chips in WCDMA-based 3G handsets because both of them are licensees of the Qualcomm patents.
Qualcomm replied that while this is true the statements by Broadcom suggest this made it okay for other companies to buy the same chips who don’t have an existing license and that this implied that it cleared Broadcom of wrongdoing, which is not true.
In effect the Qualcomm case against Broadcom proceeds, but no summary judgment to prevent chip delivery is being issued by the court.
But this case has done a lot to clarify just why Broadcom and Qualcomm are so up in arms against each other. Broadcom has decided that CDMA chips are about to become commodity items and have gone after the market in Korea with cheaper chips, but without agreeing to pay Qualcomm’s high royalties which it figures are illegal under anti-trust laws, arguing that the royalties are not applied on an equal basis for chip makers and customers.
So this looks like a case of round one not in Qualcomm’s favor, but in the end Qualcomm might still win the infringement complaint.
Broadcom filed its motion for partial summary judgment in December 2006 in response to Qualcomm’s claim that Broadcom’s sales of 3G WCDMA chips infringe a patent asserted by Qualcomm in the ongoing patent litigation between the companies.
The court agreed with Broadcom that Samsung and Panasonic are licensed to incorporate Broadcom’s 3G cellular chips into WCDMA-based handsets.
The ruling did not address Qualcomm’s remaining claims of direct infringement against Broadcom.
Broadcom also released its figure this week with revenue for the fourth quarter at $923.5 million, up 12.5% from 2005 and net income at $45.1 million compared with $186.7 million this time last year. This year’s figure has come down by $90 million after adjustments for stock based compensation.
Revenue for the year was $3.67 billion, up 37.3% and net income for the year was $379.0 million, compared with $367.1 million.