Judge holds Qualcomm in contempt

29 Aug 2008 at 17:51 GMT Timo Poropudas

The Qualcomm is taking it it in the chin in Broadcom court cases. Yesterday a Santa Ana, Calif., federal judge ruled Qualcomm violated an injunction on the use of Broadcom patents and he ordered the company to pay royalties on certain QChat push-to-talk revenue.

U.S. District Judge James Selna said there was "clear and convincing evidence" that Qualcomm was in contempt of a Dec. 31 order that he issued to prevent the company from infringing on three Broadcom patents.

In May 2007 a jury found Qualcomm had infringed on the three Broadcom patents and it awarded USD 19.6 million in damages for past infringement in the case.

Fierce Wireless reports, that Qualcomm says it has already moved to a new version of the QChat software and wireless phones that no longer infringe on the patents. Yet, the company would not say how many wireless phones would be affected by the judge's order, nor would it provide an estimate of how much money the company owed to Broadcom for the profits from its QChat product line.