Judge may overturn Qualcomm ruling |
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Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:19
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SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - A federal judge is considering whether to overturn a $39.3 million award to chipmaker Broadcom Corp. and grant a new trial in one of the company's patent disputes with rival Qualcomm Inc.U.S. District Judge James Selna tentatively ruled Monday that Qualcomm deserved a new trial because the legal standard for whether patent infringement was deliberate has changed.Before the unrelated appeals court ruling that raised the standard, Selna doubled the damages a jury had awarded to Irvine-based Broadcom to $39.3 million.The jury had found in May that San Diego-based Qualcomm violated three patents on Broadcom technologies to help cell phones process video, manage walkie-talkie conversations and hand off calls between different networks.On Monday, Selna asked both companies to submit any additional briefs by Oct. 26 and said he would issue a written ruling the week after.In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit -- the national patent appeals court -- raised the standard for proving willful infringement, a finding that allows a judge to triple a jury's award.That ruling came in a dispute between an individual investor and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology against Seagate Technology, the world's largest maker of hard drives.'It would be an understatement to say that the Federal Circuit rewrote decades of case law interpreting the requirements for demonstrating willful infringement in a patent case,' Selna wrote in his tentative ruling.Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Lawyers, Qualcomm may be sanctioned 