Court Upholds Patent Ruling Against Qualcomm

Updated from 1:20 p.m. EDT

A federal appeals court upheld a previous ruling that Qualcomm (QCOM Quote) infringed on two patents held by Broadcom (BRCM Quote), sending shares of the two companies in opposite directions.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled alongside a lower court in a patent dispute case brought forth by Broadcom against Qualcomm. "[T]he district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a permanent injunction," the Court of Appeals said in a release.

Broadcom claimed that baseband chips produced by Qualcomm that enable cell phones to run on high-speed 3G networks, using CDMA2000 and WCDMA technologies, infringed on patents it held. Qualcomm argued that because Broadcom makes WCDMA chips, not CDMA2000 products like Qualcomm, it could not have established "irreparable injury" from Qualcomm's sale of CDMA2000 chips. ...