SAN DIEGO-Qualcomm Inc. announced it has successfully defended itself against the patent infringement case brought against it by BTG USA Inc., and that BTG has voluntarily dismissed its case against Qualcomm and agreed to never again assert the patent in issue versus Qualcomm and its licensees.
BTG had filed the lawsuit in August 1996, alleging that Qualcomm’s Code Division Multiple Access and OmniTracs products infringed a patent BTG acquired from ITT.
In the lawsuit, BTG claimed, among other things, that the ITT patent was a pioneering patent that was essential to practice the Interim Standard 95 protocol, and that Qualcomm owed BTG tens of millions in damages, according to Qualcomm. Qualcomm argued in the lawsuit that BTG’s interpretation of the ITT patent was too broad and that Qualcomm was not infringing the claims of the patent.
After hearing Qualcomm and BTG’s arguments on claims construction, the court found in favor of Qualcomm by declining to find that the patent was a pioneering patent and by interpreting the patent claims to have a far narrower scope than BTG had alleged.
Within a month of the court’s ruling, BTG voluntarily offered to dismiss its case against Qualcomm and grant a complete release to Qualcomm on all claims under the patent without any payment from Qualcomm to BTG.
