Broadcom has now won its second patent spat with Qualcomm in court,
this time through a jury trial that lasted nine days, and had at its
heart, patents associated with H.264, the new standard codec which
comes out of the telecommunications community and the MPEG standards
body.
What we find alarming is the fact that finally, at the end of the
trial, Broadcom is able to tell us more clearly what the legal battle
was all about, which is that the patent royalties that Qualcomm
wanted to bill Broadcom turned out to be more than twice what the all
other technology contributors to the standard require when put
together.
It's all very alarming in that there was a patent pool put together
for H.264, but it appears to include everyone that helped build the
H.264 technology except Qualcomm. For instance, it includes Daewoo,
France Télécom, the Fraunhofer institute, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Philips,
LG Electronics, LSI Logic, Matsushita, Microsoft, Mitsubishi,
Samsung, Sharp, Siemens, Sony, Toshiba and JVC to name but a few.
H.264 technology is at the heart of devices like iPods, DVRs, set
tops, DVD players and where video enabled, cellular handsets.
And the patent pool requests that for up to five million encoder
decoder units sold OEM, the manufacturer pays 20 cents each, above
five million units this falls to 10 cents each, up to a maximum of
$3.5m, with that maximum rising gradually in later years to $5m.
Qualcomm felt that its two patents were worth over $8m from Broadcom
alone. Which is interesting, because Microsoft has around 200 such
patents and many of the CE manufacturers have even more. And yet of
160 total patents that were deemed essential, each of these companies
warrant just a small share of the patent pool revenues (the split
varies based on who has contributed the most technology).
There are two issues here, firstly that Qualcomm told the standards
body that it would offer its technology on a reasonable and
nondiscriminatory basis, and secondly that Qualcomm never joins
patent pools and always pursues its IPR alone. And yet Qualcomm
executives, as we meet them at events around the world, get annoyed
that analysts go on about the "intellectual property" question
complaining that we don't ask anyone else about it.
....
If this turns out to be the type of issue that the rest of the
Qualcomm Broadcom dispute is based on, then it will all go in
Broadcom's favour. The federal jury sat at a trial in San Diego and
found that Broadcom had not infringed the two patents. The verdict
was unanimous and was reached after six hours of deliberation. Senior
officials at both companies were involved with Broadcom's co-founder
Dr Henry Samueli and Qualcomm co-founder Dr Irwin Jacobs both taking
the witness stand, along with many other expert witnesses.
The jury found that Qualcomm had knowingly violated a duty to
disclose its patents to the standards organisation involved in the
run up to its adoption as a standard and that Qualcomm did not
operate in good faith in its dealings with the US Patent and
Trademark Office.
David Dull, Broadcom's Senior Vice President and General Counsel
said: "The trial cast a bright light on Qualcomm's penchant for
abusing the rules and procedures of industry standards-making
bodies."
This was the second Broadcom victory in court over Qualcomm. It won a
case involving the US International Trade Commission last year that
showed that Qualcomm's cellular baseband chips infringe on Broadcom
patents.
But there remains a long way to go on the Broadcom Qualcomm battles,
with Qualcomm cellular baseband patents at the heart of another suit
and Broadcom patents relating to Bluetooth, and cellular technologies
at the heart of another, both to be heard later this year.
Altogether, Broadcom says it has infringement claims from 14
different Broadcom patents awaiting trial against Qualcomm along with
two anti-trust actions, one in the US and another in Europe.
A statement from Qualcomm recited in the US press, claimed a small
victory in that its video compression patent remains valid, according
to the judge, despite all the other controversy.
[MORE]
--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>
In article <030220070824503161%rag@nospam.techline.com>,
Randall Ainsworth <rag@nospam.techline.com> wrote:
> In article <paCdndpNCNtiBlnYnZ2dnUVZ_sOknZ2d@speakeasy.net> , Bill
> Kearney <wkearney-99@hot-mail-com> wrote:
>
> > An apt question, but the gist of the article is correct, qualcomm is a train
> > wreck.
>
> And Mr. Navas is a dickwad.
Boy, that'll show him! LOL
What is this, the 4th grade?
Bill Kearney wrote:
> "Randall Ainsworth" <rag@nospam.techline.com> wrote in message
> news:020220070528468875%rag@nospam.techline.com...
>> Ever thought of getting a life?
>
> An apt question, but the gist of the article is correct, qualcomm is a train
> wreck.
It's always popular to hate companies that get most of their revenue
from licensing their intellectual property. Rambus, Qualcomm, etc.
Meanwhile, their earnings per share and revenue continues to grow.
On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 09:46:01 -0800, Kurt <labolide@spacegmail.com> wrote
in <labolide-414E67.09460103022007@news.giganews.com>:
>In article <030220070824503161%rag@nospam.techline.com>,
> Randall Ainsworth <rag@nospam.techline.com> wrote:
>
>> In article <paCdndpNCNtiBlnYnZ2dnUVZ_sOknZ2d@speakeasy.net> , Bill
>> Kearney <wkearney-99@hot-mail-com> wrote:
>>
>> > An apt question, but the gist of the article is correct, qualcomm is a train
>> > wreck.
>>
>> And Mr. Navas is a dickwad.
>
>Boy, that'll show him! LOL
>What is this, the 4th grade?
Please don't insult 4th graders. ;)
--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>
On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:46:47 -0800, SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com>
wrote in <45c4d897$0$68984$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>:
>Bill Kearney wrote:
>> "Randall Ainsworth" <rag@nospam.techline.com> wrote in message
>> news:020220070528468875%rag@nospam.techline.com...
>>> Ever thought of getting a life?
>>
>> An apt question, but the gist of the article is correct, qualcomm is a train
>> wreck.
>
>It's always popular to hate companies that get most of their revenue
>from licensing their intellectual property. Rambus, Qualcomm, etc.
Only those that abuse their portfolios, which unfortunately tends to be
true of companies that are little more than portfolios. Other companies
have far bigger portfolios (e.g., IBM), but act more reasonably.
--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>
Why the rest of the world hates Qualcomm 
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