Judge may grant Qualcomm new trial in Broadcom patent dispute

The Associated Press

Article Last Updated: 10/16/2007 02:13:35 PM PDT

SANTA ANA, Calif.—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 issued a tentative ruling Monday to allow a new trial because a federal appeals court recently made it more difficult to prove that patent infringement was deliberate.

The judge 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 heightened 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.

In August, before the appeals court ruling, Selna doubled jury damages to Irvine-based Broadcom to $39.3 million. A jury found in May that San Diego-based Qualcomm violated three patents on Broadcom technologies to help cell phones process video and walkie-talkie conversations and hand off calls between different networks.