Qualcomm, Nokia, Broadcom Continue Their Patent Battles

A mobile wireless intellectual property skirmish involving three wireless technology companies is heating up again.

After Nokia went to courts in Germany and the Netherlands on Monday seeking to invalidate some Qualcomm patents, Qualcomm launched a counterattack against Nokia Tuesday and prepared for a public hearing Wednesday for a hearing on separate litigation the wireless company has with Broadcom.

Wednesday's Qualcomm-Broadcom hearing will be conducted by the International Trade Commission. Lyle Vander Schaaf, a former ITC attorney, said in an e-mail that such a hearing is extremely rare. "The meeting will help establish a solid record on the decision in the event that either Broadcom or Qualcomm make an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit."

Last Friday, Qualcomm and Broadcom agreed to dismiss various intellectual property litigations between them. That measure eliminated five jury trials on patents that had been scheduled to get underway on Monday. However, the agreement didn't include the ITC hearing, which is expected to last two days.

On Tuesday, Qualcomm lashed out at Nokia, a longtime intellectual property adversary, over Nokia's charges in Europe that some of Qualcomm's patents are "exhausted" and unenforceable in European markets."Qualcomm will continue to aggressively prosecute its current infringement cases against Nokia to stop Nokia from infringing Qualcomm's intellectual property rights related to GSM/GPRS and EDGE," Qualcomm stated in a release Tuesday.

GSM/GPRS and EDGE are wireless technologies in heavy use by mobile phone service providers using the European-developed GSM standard. In the United States, AT&T's Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile utilize those technologies.

Nokia maintains key Qualcomm patents are covered by licensing agreements it has with Texas Instruments.