Today, the Third Circuit reversed dismissal of Broadcom’s claims that QUALCOMM tried to monopolize the market for cellular phone "chipsets" by manipulating the process for setting industry technology standards. Broadcom alleged that QUALCOMM fooled a "standards-determining organization" into adopting a QUALCOMM-friendly standard for "Wideband CDMA". QUALCOMM did so, according to the complaint, because it wanted to use its patents and other intellectual property in CDMA technology, which it dominated, to foreclose competition in WCDMA, which it saw as an emerging threat. The district court dismissed the complaint; but the Third Circuit begged to differ. Broadcom, Inc. v. QUALCOMM Inc., No. 06-4292 (3d Cir. Sept. 4, 2007).
Blawgletter notes, in case you wondered, that Verizon and Sprint use CDMA networks, that AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM networks, and that WCDMA relates to a new generation of GSM instead of CDMA. And they say that lawyers talk funny.
Barry Barnett
