The latest round in the Broadcom Corp. vs. Qualcomm Inc. legal battle sent up a flurry of dust,with both sides claiming victory, as usual.
Wall Street seemed to give San Diego’s Qualcomm the edge.
Earlier this month, administrative law judge Charles Bullock of the International Trade Commission said Qualcomm infringed on one Broadcom patent for wireless chips.
That’s saying something. Bullock actually said Qualcomm committed an act that could have serious repercussions.
But the judge went on to say that Qualcomm didn’t infringe on other patents in the case.
And here’s the zinger: The judge didn’t recommend punishing Qualcomm by barring imports of phones with the infringed patent.
And that’s the real power of the ITC,barring imports.
It looks like Qualcomm will be able to reconfigure its chip sets so it doesn’t have to use the technology that was infringed, said Aalok Shah, an analyst with D.A. Davidson & Co. in Portland, Ore.
“Even with the (judge) saying Qualcomm infringed … him not putting on any real restrictions,that’s basically saying that there’s not a lot Broadcom can argue for,” Shah said.
You could see that in the way investors reacted.
On the day of the announcement, Qualcomm’s stock was up about 1.5%. Broadcom’s stock lost about 3%.
This ruling just doesn’t do a lot to force Qualcomm into some kind of settlement with Broadcom.
“I don’t think there’s any real sign yet that Qualcomm is ready to negotiate,” Shah said.
That said, the ITC makes the final decision on what will happen in this case. That probably will happen by February.
Yet there is a chance the judge’s opinion could be taken under advisement by other judges, one lawyer said.
“What you now have is a 250-plus page opinion by a judge who has a fair amount of experience in patent law addressing three testy technology laden patents in wireless communications that can have an effect on the next judge who sees that,” said Smith Brittingham, a lawyer at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP.
One of the other hot spots in this legal battle is in federal court in San Diego.
Recent efforts to force a settlement have ended without bearing any fruit.
Broadcom saw a win in the ITC decision.
“Today’s ruling validates our decision to challenge Qualcomm’s illegal conduct, and will invigorate us to aggressively enforce our rights going forward,” the Irvine chipmaker said in a statement.
Patent litigation between the two companies is set to go to trial in the next year.
“Qualcomm is gratified with the determination that our company has not infringed two of the three Broadcom patents,” said Paul Jacobs, chief executive of Qualcomm, in a statement.
Filed Away
Next time you check stocks online, don’t bother typing in “FILE.”
Costa Mesa-based FileNet Corp. officially is part of Big Blue now.
The $1.6 billion acquisition, one of the biggest of the year for any Orange County company, was finalized Oct. 12.
It brings closure to an effort that began in late 2004 to sell the maker of data management software.
FileNet initially put out feelers to IBM Corp. and others in 2005 before putting the idea on hold until earlier this year.
FileNet is among several sellers of content management software, including EMC Corp. and Canada’s OpenText Corp.
Enterprise content management software is used to find, sort and retrieve documents and files, including Word documents, PDFs and e-mails.
FileNet has gone a step further, folding in what’s called business process management software,culling data to automate and speed up transactions such as mortgages. The company’s software package, called P8, now makes up about 90% of FileNet’s sales and puts it among the top four players in the market.
Conexant Connects
Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems Inc. saw its stock shoot up 7% in one day after just one contract announcement.
The chipmaker said Oct. 16 it had reached a deal with Huawei Technologies Co. of China to use Conexant’s chips to power set-top TV boxes.
Huawei is a big maker of telecommunications equipment and other gear. The company sells to China Telecom, China Unicom and SingTel.
Huawei already had used Conexant’s broadband chips and liked what it saw.
“Conexant has been a valued supplier of broadband access products to Huawei for many years, and we are now expanding the scope of our business to include set-top box technologies,” said Chen Chongjun, marketing director of Huawei’s fixed network terminals group.
Chongjun went on to say the company liked Conexant’s nearby engineering teams.
Conexant has engineering operations in China and also in India, part of its push to lower costs and get closer to customers.
