Broadcom filed a lawsuit against competitor Emulex shortly after it declined an acquisition proposal in 2009, over the alleged infringement of two patents registered under the former. The verdict finally arrived in later December last year, when a judge concluded several Emulex products do indeed violate Broadcom IP. Our original coverage can be found here.

The latest and most likely of the recent major developments in the case happened today, according to a statement put out earlier.  The ban preventing Emulex from selling its Lancer chips, as well as the BladeEngine2 and BladeEngine3 Ethernet controllers, has been made permanent with a small near-term expectation.

“Under the terms of the ruling Emulex can continue to sell those products for another 18 months to customers who have already ordered them, but it must pay Broadcom a 9 percent royalty.”

Beyond the courtroom

Outside the courtroom, Broadcom is working on expanding its turf. Last month its massive $3.4 billion acquisition of NetLogic became  official, and a short week later the company debuted its new system-on-chip (SoC)  line for  tablets running on the latest version of Android. Performance varies from 1.0Ghz to 1.3GHz and there’s a chip specifically designed to handle video workloads, among other additions, but nothing more specific that ties in the BCM family with  Ice Cream Sandwich.

Mobile is one area Broadcom is focusing on in particular, which is no wonder considering its existing presence in the market and the sheer opportunity the ecosystem’s growth presents.  However, competition is increasing, and innovations such as the high-speed processor that powers the new iPad are changing the rules of the game once more.

The same can be said of the draft 802.11ac WiFi standard, something that the networking solutions maker and other vendors have acknowledged.