The ITC of the United States gave a ruling disallowing any further import of CDMA phones based on the 3G chipset of San Diego, Ca. company, Qualcomm. The ruling upheld the claims of rival chip design firm Broadcom, who claimed that parts of the chipset from Qualcomm infringe on their intellectual property. The California federal court awarded 19.6 million in damages for the infringement, yet strangely shares in Qualcomm rose by about three percent upon the news.

Broadcom has stated it will allow Qualcomm to use its technology after terms are reached on licensing.

Most affected will be Verizon and Sprint, as they are the largest providers of CDMA service in the United States. Verizon has claimed it will seek relief from the court, under the claim that as a blameless victim, they should be allowed to continue to purchase phones as needed.

Current models of phones will be allowed to be imported, only new models will be excluded. This could mean much less choice for CDMA customers in four to six months.

Of interest is the fact that the infringement is not at the heart of the 3G technology itself, but in the power management of the chipset. Perhaps Qualcomm will choose in the short run to reinvent the power circuitry to avert any royalty payments to Broadcom.

If no arrangement is made, estimates of 1.6 billion dollars annual loss of revenue are quoted.

It should be understood that, because of the high turn rate of cell phone models, if no agreement is reached, or workaround developed, CDMA phone availability in he U.S. could end completely.

[tags]CDMA, 3G, Verizon, Sprint, Alltel, Qualcomm, Broadcom, patent infringement[/tags]