Both sides claim victory in Qualcomm ruling

YET ANOTHER twist in the Broadcom versus Qualcomm saga. A US appeals court has just cleared the way for Broadcom to take Qualcomm to court for anticompetitive behaviour.

Which would seem a pretty good result for Broadcom, but then Qualcomm points out that six of Broadcom's original eight claims have now been dismissed.

So that's six down and just two more to go in Qualcomm's opinion.

The whole issue revolves around whether Qualcomm is licensing its bit of the W-CDMA/3G standard on "on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms."

Which is what it should do as W-CDMA forms part of an international standard. Broadcom argues, however, that if handset manufacturers use Qualcomm's own chips then they end up paying lower fees.

This whole argument has been covered by the INQ in depth before.

The language used by the three judges hearing the case is very interesting. They said that Broadcom had "presented enough evidence to go to trial with its claims that Qualcomm possessed monopoly power."

Plus they added that Qualcomm has "maintained its market power willfully and not as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident." Ouch!

Of course, there will be others watching the outcome of this trial which Broadcom intends to push ahead with in New Jersey, ASAP. One of those is Nokia which effectively has been arguing the same thing.

Meanwhile there has been good news for Qualcomm. Leap Wireless (a Qualcomm spin-off) may merge with MetroPCS to become the USA's fifth biggest national carrier.

Curiously both companies have concentrated heavily on offering low cost telephony rather than pushing a data capability via EVDO. µ

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