Broadcom Files Antitrust Suit Vs. Qualcomm
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Communications chip maker Broadcom Corp (BRCM) on Tuesday said it filed an antitrust lawsuit against Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) on top of patent infringement and fair trade complaints it already made against the wireless technology firm.
The latest lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court (search) for the District of New Jersey, is seeking monetary damages and a permanent injunction barring Qualcomm's "unfair business practices," according to a statement from Broadcom.
Qualcomm dominates the market for chips based on CDMA (search), the most popular technology in U.S. mobile phones. It also sells technology licenses for CDMA and an W-CDMA (search), a high-speed version of rival standard GSM, the world's most popular cellphone technology.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In the lawsuit, Broadcom alleges that Qualcomm abused the wireless technology standards-setting process, failed to meet commitments to license technology for mobile phone standards on reasonable terms and committed various anti-competitive business practices.
Broadcom also said Qualcomm's domination of CDMA technology - the most popular cellphone technology in the U.S. - has increased the price of mobile phones in the United States.
It also said it was concerned that the same thing would happen for emerging high-speed wireless phones.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Broadcom said in May it filed two lawsuits and a fair trade complaint against Qualcomm Inc, alleging the firm infringed 10 Broadcom patents. It said last month that the International Trade Commission (search) had begun a probe into the company.
It said Qualcomm infringed its patents with circuits for wireless devices, including its QChat push-to-talk technology.
Qualcomm was not immediately available to comment.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Qualcomm shares were down 45 cents at $33.15 on Nasdaq where Broadcom stock was up 20 cents at $36.30.