Qualcomm won two court victories last week: The ITC dropped Nokia's patent infringement case and Broadcom announced it would not refile its lawsuit, but rather accept the reduced fines ($19.6 million) against Qualcomm.
The ITC's decision to drop the Nokia suit follows its decision to end an investigation into Qualcomm. Nokia stressed that the case was dropped not because of the merits of the case, but because of ongoing arbitration.
Broadcom had the option of accepting the reduced fines of refiling a case, after a change in federal law regarding the "willfulness" of patent infringement affected the case's settlement. U.S. District Court Judge James Selna doubled the damages a jury awarded Broadcom to $39.3 million prior to the change in law. Broadcom said it will still "seek to enjoin Qualcomm from making, using, selling and developing third-generation WCDMA and EV-DO cellular chips that infringe any of the patents."
For more on the cases:
- read this WSJ article about Nokia-ITC (sub. req.)
- read this WSJ article about Broadcom (sub. req.)