October 8 - 4:35pm EDT   Chipmakers Broadcom and Qualcomm are taking their fight to court yet again, as a Wednesday report has the former filing a patent misuse complaint in federal court against the latter. This is the latest development in the ongoing legal battles that date back to 2005 over mobile phone technology licensing between the two wireless device chipmakers. Broadcom claims Qualcomm’s misuse of patents allows it to collect double the royalties it is entitled to, hurting the wireless industry and its consumers. The filing was made in a San Diego, California US District Court on Tuesday. [full story]

July 24 - 2:30am EDT   Hours before going to trial, both Nokia and Qualcomm have reached an all-encompassing settlement over a year-old patent feud between the two companies, which could save them hundreds of millions in legal fees and help Nokia focus its development efforts in an increasingly competitive landscape. While the details were not disclosed, the settlement includes an up-front payment by Finish handset maker Nokia and on-going royalties payable to US-based Qualcomm. In addition, Nokia has agreed to assign ownership of a number of patents to Qualcomm, including patents declared as essential to WCDMA, GSM and OFDMA. [full story]

July 3 - 4:10pm EDT   HP today became one of the first companies known to be shipping systems based on AMD's new Turion X2 Ultra processors and platform. The 14-inch Compaq 6535b and 15.4-inch Compaq 6735b are HP's flagships for workstations and pros and use the new architecture to support up to 8GB of DDR2 memory (with 64-bit operating systems) as well as give faster integrated graphics through the Mobility Radeon HD 3200. [full story]

June 17 - 11:40am EDT   The Khronos Group late yesterday established a new alliance between vendors that could see standards for high performance computing such as OpenCL gain a foothold across many operating systems and hardware platforms. Called the Computer Working Group, the team includes graphics rivals 3DLabs, AMD, and NVIDIA, processor makers such as ARM, Freescale, Intel, and Qualcomm, and end product manufacturers such as Motorola and Nokia, all of whom hope to create and maintain genuinely open and royalty-free standards for using newer graphics hardware to process very demanding compute tasks. [full story]

June 16 - 3:35pm EDT   HTC is gearing up to produce mobile Internet devices (MIDs) based on Intel's Atom processor as well as Qualcomm's Snapdragon mobile chipset, say reports from those in the industry. The reports would have the creator of the HTC Shift and other crossover computers produce the systems with the faster, more power-efficient chips as early as the second half of this year in a bid to improve HTC's standing in ultra-mobile PCs, which have been hurt by mini notebooks like the ASUS Eee PC. [full story]

June 2 - 1:40pm EDT   Qualcomm has collaborated on a miniature notebook with Linux and plans similar efforts for Windows Mobile 7, the company has revealed today. Designed largely by Inventec, the Linux system will cost $300 but should have a Qualcomm 3G chipset to give it wide-area wireless access without buying extra hardware. the latter's senior VP Luis Pineda acknowledges that the PC hasn't been made official but promises a launch sometime before the end of 2008. [full story]

June 2 - 10:45am EDT   A set of slides leaked today via Engadget Mobile has detailed many of Verizon's phone plans for the next few months, including new smartphones. One image confirms that the US carrier will pick up the Palm Treo 800w and verifies virtually every detail of the device, including its being Palm's first phone with EVDO Revision A for faster 3G access as well as Wi-Fi, a 1.3-megapixel camera, and 256MB of permanent storage in addition to a microSD slot. The new Treo is due in the summer and may launch near the Sprint version. [full story]

May 1 - 1:30am EDT   AT&T and Qualcomm's MediaFLO on Thursday announced that its new AT&T Mobile TV with FLO service is expected to available on the May 4 along with two exclusive handsets: the Vu from LG and the Access from Samsung. First announced in late March, AT&T will offer TV-quality programming with exclusive channels (PIX and CNN Mobile Live) as well as content from from leading news and entertainment brands: CBS Mobile, ESPN Mobile TV, FOX Mobile, NBC 2Go, NBC News 2Go, MTV Networks’ COMEDY CENTRAL, MTV and Nickelodeon. [full story]

March 24 - 4:15pm EDT   The FCC has agreed to look into accusations of extortion following its 700MHz wireless auction, reports say. While major blocks of the sought-after spectrum were quickly snapped up by companies such as AT&T and Verizon, the D block was largely abandoned, receiving a single $472 million bid by Qualcomm -- well short of the FCC's asking reserve price, $1.3 billion. The investigation will be headed by the FCC's inspector general, Kent Nilsson. [full story]

March 3 - 2:15pm EST   Qualcomm was dealt a second blow in its lawsuits against Nokia today by the UK High Court, rendering invalid some of the company's accusations of patent infringement against the cellphone maker. Following a similar defeat in the US through the International Trade Commission, Qualcomm was informed that its power control and savings management techniques were not infringed by any chipsets inside Nokia's GSM-based cellphones. Qualcomm says it is "actively considering" appealing the decision and receiving permission to change its patent to eliminate the technical disputes that led to the new ruling. [full story]

February 28 - 4:05pm EST   One final victory has been granted before the temporary ceasefire begins between Nokia and Qualcomm. The US International Trade Commission has affirmed a ruling it issued in December, which said that Nokia had not violated three patents relating to GSM, GPRS and EDGE technology. The case in fact backfired for Qualcomm, as the ITC determined that one of the patents was invalid. [full story]

February 25 - 4:05pm EST   Cellular giants Nokia and Qualcomm have taken steps towards lessening the damage of their legal battle, reports say. The companies have announced that they will not start any new patent infringement cases, and will place some current ones on hold, consolidating the rest into a licensing case scheduled for July 21st in the US District Court for Delaware. The case could thus take on monumental importance. [full story]

February 7 - 10:30am EST   Qualcomm today said it would be the first company to produce chipsets capable of supporting multiple 4G Internet standards. Three of its chipsets will now not only support the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard that will be used many larger world carriers but also competing and bridging standards: the top two chipsets, the MDM9600 and MDM 9800, will support the upcoming EVDO Rev. B and Ultra-Mobile Broadband (UMB) standards for CDMA networks even as they support LTE networks once they appear. Each will be powerful enough to handle downloads as quick as 50Mbps and uploads as fast as 25Mbps, Qualcomm says. [full story]

January 2 - 11:50am EST   Qualcomm will avoid a potentially damaging Broadcom-related ban through its own inventions and a special exemption-, both a federal judge and Qualcomm itself have revealed. After failing to dismiss claims by Broadcom of patent infringement for video compression and network technologies, Qualcomm is required to stop selling some chips in the US which use the WCDMA technology at the heart of AT&T's 3G network. However, the federal court has now granted a stay that will let Qualcomm sell some of these chipsets through January 2009 as long as it pays royalties for the technology. [full story]

December 19 - 11:30am EST   Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is one of those already confirmed as bidding in the upcoming FCC auction for the 700MHz wireless band, according to the list of accepted applicants (PDF). The former executive is using a proxy firm known as Vulcan Spectrum in an attempt to capture a slice of the soon to be free wireless spectrum, which has been eagerly sought after by telecom providers for its potential with long-range Internet and similar data. Neither Allen nor Vulcan has revealed the reasons behind the bid, though Allen is also a significant stakeholder in cable provider Charter. [full story]