Jury awards Broadcom $19.6M

Broadcom Corp. is “pleased” and “gratified” that a federal jury in Santa Ana, Calif., found Qualcomm Inc. willfully infringed on three of its patents and awarded it $19.6 million in damages to cover past infringements.
A June 18 hearing has been set to consider Broadcom’s request for a permanent injunction against Qualcomm to bar further infringement. The finding of infringement means the jury could also triple the damages awarded to Broadcom.
The three patents in question relate to Broadcom’s multimode IP in Qualcomm’s CDMA2000 1x EV-DO baseband chips, its chip architecture for video processing and push-to-talk software used by Qualcomm in its QChat product.
Qualcomm’s response to the jury’s finding remained defiant.
“We continue to believe that none of the Broadcom patent claims are valid or were infringed by Qualcomm,” said Lou Lupin, Qualcomm’s general counsel, in a prepared statement, “and we will challenge the jury’s findings of infringement, validity and willfulness in post-trial motions and on appeal, if necessary.”
Though its logic was not immediately apparent, Qualcomm added that Broadcom had purchased the patents in question and that none were inventions developed specifically for cellular technology.
For its part, Broadcom took the opportunity to state that the jury verdict yesterday “is the latest in a series of favorable court and governmental decisions for Broadcom in its ongoing battles with Qualcomm over patent infringement issues.” It reviewed a number of pending cases by Broadcom and other industry players against Qualcomm and noted that, among the raft of legal matters, it currently faces no actions against it by Qualcomm.
Mark McKechnie, analyst with American Technology Research, wrote in a note to investors today that the jury verdict is a setback for Qualcomm, improving Broadcom’s negotiating position in licensing agreements with Qualcomm. Though Qualcomm is developing a work-around with respect to a patent infringement issue before the United States International Trade Commission in which Broadcom has also prevailed, McKechnie sees no such solution to the three patents cited in yesterday’s verdict. The analyst said that yesterday’s verdict would dampen Qualcomm’s stock value as investors assess the decision’s ramifications.
Qualcomm’s stock was trading down just over 2% early Wednesday at $43.13 per share.