Qualcomm Inc. has made a double-barrel response to claims by L.M. Ericsson that Qualcomm’s Code Division Multiple Access products infringe on Ericsson technology patents.
Both Qualcomm and Ericsson hold CDMA U.S. patents. Qualcomm has designed and is building commercial CDMA infrastructure and handset equipment for the world market. Ericsson has chosen not to manufacture commercial CDMA equipment at this time, saying it doesn’t feel Interim Standard 95 is mature enough for full-scale product deployment.
The two companies have been in discussions about CDMA patents since 1989. Those talks began to break down after Sweden-based Ericsson filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Qualcomm in September in Texas federal court.
In response last week, Qualcomm filed a complaint in California alleging Ericsson is practicing unfair competition “to impede the acceptance and commercial deployment” of Qualcomm’s CDMA technology and products in the industry.
Qualcomm alleges Ericsson has published “false and disparaging statements” about its CDMA technology, and takes issue to what it deems “baseless claims of patent infringement.”
Qualcomm also charges that Ericsson’s patent infringement claim violates a 1989 nondisclosure agreement between the two companies in which “Ericsson expressly acknowledged that key elements of Qualcomm’s CDMA technology … were proprietary to Qualcomm.” The key elements listed include soft handoff, power control and multiple receivers to mitigate multipath interference.
Ericsson’s list of IS-95 patents includes two 1989 soft handover patents, a 1989 macro diversity patent, a 1992 DTX transmission patent, a 1991 blind rate decoder patent, two 1991 patents for authentication and a 1990 patent for encryption for digital cellular.
In addition, Qualcomm has intervened in a lawsuit that Oki America Inc. filed against Ericsson in September in a California federal court. Oki is building CDMA handsets under license by Qualcomm. Qualcomm said it joined Oki because Oki is a customer for Qualcomm’s application specific integrated circuits and also to help Oki “establish that Ericsson’s patents are invalid.”
Ericsson said it had discussed licensing with Oki, but had not threatened to sue the company. The parent company of the U.S. group is Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. of Tokyo.
The Qualcomm lawsuit also asks for a judicial declaration that Ericsson’s patents are not infringed by Qualcomm.
