Qualcomm Wins This Round

The Qualcomm-Broadcom tangle took another turn this week, when a federal judge granted a temporary stay of the ban on Qualcomm microchips.

In a legalistic twist of sorts, Judge Haldane Mayer sided with a group of cell phone manufacturers that filed an appeal – including Motorola, Samsung and T-Mobile. The argument? Since the original law suit filed by Broadcom named only Qualcomm, the federal government – the International Trade Commission, to be specific – does not have the authority to impose a ban on any other company’s imports.

Judge Mayer did not actually rule on the issue under appeal; she simply suspended the ban pending the appeal process. So, for the foreseeable future, cell phones containing Qualcomm microchips are still allowed into the country.