Broadcom Corporation (News - Alert), a company that offers semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications, reportedly has announced that Qualcomm Incorporated has been found in contempt of an injunction ordered by a federal judge in December 2007.

 

The injunction reportedly said that Qualcomm (News - Alert) must stop infringing on three Broadcom patents.

 

James V. Selna, a U.S. District Judge, said that Qualcomm continued to use and support infringing WCDMA chips, and thereby violated the injunction. The judge also ordered that Qualcomm must immediately stop, and found that Qualcomm paid no royalties to Broadcom on its infringing QChat products, adding to the violation.

 

Qualcomm has been ordered by the court to pay Broadcom the gross profits made by the company upon on its infringing QChat products. Also, Qualcomm must pay Broadcom’s legal fees.

 

David Rosmann, vice president of intellectual property litigation at Broadcom, said that over the past two years, Qualcomm has been found to have infringed on four Broadcom patents, abused the standards-setting process, and committed gross discovery misconduct, and now has been held in contempt of a court-ordered injunction.

 

Rosmann said that Qualcomm’s conduct demonstrates a lack of respect for its competitors’ intellectual property, industry standards-setting processes and the courts.

 

The case had been filed by Broadcom in the month of May 2005 in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California. The jury had given a verdict on the 29th of May, 2007 that three Broadcom patents had been infringed by Qualcomm.

 

Broadcom Corporation is a semiconductor company that provides semiconductor products and components for wired and wireless communications. The products developed by Broadcom are deployed in a number of industries like voice, video, data and multimedia etc.

 

The company earned revenues of $3.78 billion in the year 2007, and has more than 2,800 U.S. and 1,200 foreign patents, with more than 7,300 patent applications pending.