Broadcom renews its attacks on Qualcomm

HAVING JUST WON a major court battle with its arch rival, Qualcomm - see … US bans Qualcomm chips, budding cellphone chip supplier, Broadcom, has effectively accused its opponent of dirty tricks.

Speaking after the decision by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to bar the future import of mobile handsets containing Qualcomm chips, Broadband's in-house lawyer, David A. Dull attacked Qualcomm's behaviour.

"Qualcomm's wilful and widespread patent infringement is particularly egregious and ironic in light of its historic practice of seeking unfair compensation for its own patent portfolio."

He added that Qualcomm had violated "multiple promises it made to international standards setting organisations to charge fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory royalty rates for Qualcomm technology incorporated into the standards."

He also accused the company of abusing "the rules and procedures of various standards bodies."

Broadcom has obviously been stung by Qualcomm's previous suggestion that it is just a bit player in the cellular market by pointing to figures from market research firm, Isuppli, that it is "one of the world's top five merchant 3G baseband chip suppliers."

It is particularly ironic that Qualcomm has said the rates currently under discussion to enable it to utilise the Broadcom patents that have just been upheld were "so prohibitive that, if met, would undermine Qualcomm's business model."

This is the same company which wanted to charge handset maker, Nokia, so much for its patent portfolio that Nokia decided to drop out of making Cdmaone handsets entirely.

Meanwhile, leading US mobile network operator - Verizon - has said it will appeal to the White House to over-rule the ITC's decision.

Which is understandable really since it is faced with the prospect that no new designs of handsets for its network could be imported into the States if the ITC gets its way.

It's fair to say that all these fights over IPR and patents are ripping the US cellular market apart. µ

L'INQ Broadcom