The news gets worse at Qualcomm

Posted Nov 23rd 2007 6:35AM by Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: Forecasts, Bad News, Law, Nokia Corp. (NOK), QUALCOMM Inc (QCOM), Broadcom Corp'A' (BRCM)

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) is a company with a history of behaving badly. It has faced patent lawsuits from its largest customer Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and rival chip company Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM). The ITC has blocked some chips containing Qualcomm 3G wireless technology from being imported into the U.S.

Qualcomm took some extra punishment for its IP infringements today. MarketWatch writes: "Semiconductor giant Broadcom Corp. on Friday said a federal judge has affirmed a jury verdict that found Qualcomm infringes three Broadcom patents. The company said it will now seek to prevent Qualcomm from making, using, selling and developing third generation, or 3G, cellular chips that infringe on the patents."

If Broadcom is successful, it could cut off another one of Qualcomm's revenue streams. QCOM has already indicated that its 2008 revenue could be partially undermined by IP disputes, and now that prediction becomes a more sound view of the company's upcoming earnings problems.

Qualcomm shares are off 10% over the last two years, and that is likely to get worse. The company has already pushed out its general counsel, and if legal judgments keep going against the company, Wall Street is going to want more than the top lawyer out.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Tags: brcm, broadcom, inthenews, nok, nokia, qcom, qualcomm