UPDATED 12:02 EDT / AUGUST 31 2012

Qualcomm, Broadcom Settle ItoM Patent Suite

Semiconductor Ideas to the Market BV is a firm that generates its revenue by licensing bits of its massive patent portfolio, similarly to chipmaker ARM.  The Netherlands-based company  (more commonly known as ItoM) is a Philips spin-off that turned independent in 1998, and makes chips and silicon-bases products for used by device manufacturers. It just announced a major victory in a patent infringement lawsuit that is estimated to have raked in millions.

As a part of a sentiment, ItoM agreed to drop its claims against several major mobile vendors in a pending case it filed at an Eastern Texas court. The Dutch IP powerhouse alleged that many of the most prominent vendors in this industry, including Qualcomm and Broadcom, have been illegally using two of its transceiver technology patents.

“We are extremely gratified that we were able to resolve our dispute with the dismissed parties,” commented Peter Langendam, ItoM’s CEO. “ItoM has a broad array of intellectual property rights covering its many innovations in transceiver systems, and we will continue to ensure that we are fairly compensated for the use of our technology,” Dr. Langendam concluded.

An Intellectual Asset Management report claims that the other, unnamed parties involved in the lawsuit include or included Apple, Dell, Samsung, Nokia, AT&T and Texas Instruments. Philips is listed in the paper as well, which also claims that ItoM is litigating against  NXP Semiconductor NV – a fellow Philips spin-off that’s also based in the Netherlands.

Patent infringement is a term that we’re used to seeing very often in the IT industry. A court recently ruled Samsung to pay over one billion dollars, while another one in South Korea made a split decision and went as far as banning products from both companies in the country.

A couple of weeks before that, Square sent a cease and desist letter to a UK competitor that used suspiciously similar marketing material to promote its product.


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