"U.S. District Judge James Selna issued the ruling Monday, the latest in
a series of legal victories Broadcom scored over Qualcomm last year
related to rights to technology for cell phones. The three patented
chips use WCDMA technology, a small but fast-growing part of the
wireless market used mostly in American T-Mobile and AT&T phones.

Selna ruled that Qualcomm can continue to sell other disputed chips in
the United States until January 2009, but must pay royalties on those
chips, which use a different technology called EVDO and are used on
Verizon and Sprint networks in America. He also allowed Qualcomm to use
a patented Broadcom walkie-talkie technology until January 2009."

Broadcom and Qualcomm must be very far apart on settling. Reminds me of
the whole RIM mess last year, but they settled eventually, as everyone
predicted.

This whole patent dispute is one reason that W-CDMA didn't make it into
the iPhone.