ITC judge issues motion to terminate Nokia/Qualcomm CDMA investigation

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 10/19/2007

Putting at least one of its multiple legal woes to rest, Qualcomm Inc. today announced that an International Trade Commission (ITC) administrative law judge (ALJ) issued an initial determination to end an investigation based on a complaint filed by Nokia against Qualcomm.

In August, Nokia filed a complaint with the ITC alleging that Qualcomm had engaged in unfair trade practices through allegedly infringing five Nokia patents in its CDMA and WCDMA/GSM chipsets. Nokia requested that the ITC remedy the alleged infringement by issuing an exclusion order to bar importation to the United States of infringing Qualcomm chipsets, and products such as handsets that containing the infringing chipsets.

According to the statement made today by Qualcommm, Judge Paul J. Luckern granted Qualcomm's motion to terminate the investigation in light of the arbitration pending between the parties regarding an agreement made in 2001. Nokia and Qualcomm have been at odds with each other since that agreement ended on April 9 of this year; Nokia claims that Qualcomm's continued use of the patents that had fallen under that 2001 agreement amounted to patent infringement, while Qualcomm maintained that Nokia's continued use of Qualcomm's patents in its CDMA cellular handsets after April 9 constituted "an election by Nokia to extend its license under the parties' existing agreement" and thereby justified Qualcomm's actions.

Judge Luckern's initial determination will become the ITC's final decision unless the ITC decides within 30 days to review the decision.

The ALJ's decision to put off the chipset ban proposed by Nokia does not mean that Qualcomm's legal troubles are completely over. Currently, the ITC is on track to implement a widely impacting ban on the importation of a number of Qualcomm chips that have been found to infringe a patent owned by rivaling communications technology company Broadcom Corp.