Qualcomm, Broadcom Drop Some Patent Claims

Qualcomm Inc. and Broadcom Corp. have settled some of their patent claims against each other, avoiding a jury trial scheduled to begin next month, Qualcomm said on Friday. They remain deadlocked over other patents, however, and still face several potential trials this year.

The chip makers have been battling in court since 2005, when Broadcom accused Qualcomm of infringing 10 of its technology patents. Qualcomm responded with its own infringement suit and the companies have been at loggerheads ever since.

They have now agreed to dismiss all claims against each other relating to two of Broadcom's patents and two of Qualcomm's patents, Qualcomm said. The agreement means that one of their infringement lawsuits in San Diego Federal Court will be dropped, and a trial scheduled there for March 5 has been dismissed, Qualcomm said.

Other cases in San Diego and in Orange County, California, remain unresolved, and the companies still have at least four other jury trials scheduled this year, Qualcomm said.

Broadcom could not immediately be reached for comment on the matter.

Separately, Qualcomm said an antitrust suit brought against it and several other technology companies by Golden Bridge Technology Inc. had been dismissed on Feb. 16. The suit, which also named Motorola Corp., Nokia Corp., Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo Inc., Panasonic and the former Lucent Technologies Inc., accused the companies of conspiring to exclude Golden Bridge's technology from a wireless industry standard.

The court determined that there was no evidence that the defendants had acted improperly, according to Qualcomm. Good Technology could not immediately be reached.