U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster will allow the six Qualcomm lawyers, who a magistrate sanctioned for their actions while representing Qualcomm in its patent suit with Broadcom last year, to defend themselves by citing private communications they had with Qualcomm. Qualcomm had previously convinced the judge that those communications were protected by attorney-client privilege, but Brewster changed his mind after learning that Qualcomm had introduced four statements from employees that criticized the services of its outside lawyers in the Broadcom case. The lawyers received the sanction after it came to light that thousands of documents relating to the Broadcom case were withheld from the court's proceedings.
For more on the ruling:
- read this WSJ article (sub req)