ITC Bans Import Of Cellphones With Qualcomm Chips
The U.S. International Trade Commission has banned Qualcomm from importing cellphone chips that infringe on a patent held by rival Broadcom. The chip in question, which is found in almost 80% of Verizon phones, uses a patented process to save power in the absence of cell coverage.
Cellphones models already available in the U.S. would be unaffected, though Qualcomm would be banned from importing new infringing models. If upheld, the ruling has the potential to delay the introduction of new cellphone models from Kyocera, LG, Motorola, and Samsung destined for the CDMA networks used by Verizon and Sprint. The ban will take effect in sixty days, unless vetoed by President Bush. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER
iPhone may become king in cellphone chip ban [AppleInsider]
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QUALCOMM and the U.S. wireless industry will seek an emergency stay from the Federal Circuit and a Presidential veto of the ITC's ruling on several grounds, including that Broadcom's ITC action will harm U.S. consumers, impact public safety and national security and harm the U.S. economy by stunting mobile broadband deployment. By punishing completely innocent cellphone manufacturers and wireless operators that were given no opportunity to contest Broadcom's infringement claims, the ruling also raises serious issues of due process and fairness. In addition, QUALCOMM and its partners have invested heavily in providing products that enabled E911 emergency call centers to locate wireless subscribers. Affordable new phone designs, which further improve the performance and accuracy in emergency situations, will be impacted by this order.
And there it is, veto this or the terrorists win and people who call 911 will DIE.
What a pathetic excuse for a company. Qualcomm has been keeping major players like Nokia and SonyEricsson out of the market for YEARS with their insane business practices, so if anyone has impacted the growth of the industry, it is them. Why do you think there are NO Nokia phones on Verizon or Sprint?
Fortunately, this only affects importing cellphones. The ones manufactured in America are okay, right?
I hope you are right scoobydoo because this is very bad for PPC/smartphones fanatics like myself. There are a lot of overseas companies that have a lot of new phones to ship and this is effecting them currently.
I can only hope and pray that this will let me void my verizon contract.
This situation also affects AT&T and has the potential to affect T-Mobile (although in neither case nearly as much as VZW/Sprint/Alltel/etc.) as most UMTS/HSDPA/WCDMA phones use Qualcomm silicon impacted by the Broadcom patent. The iPhone, of course, is not 3G and so not affected.
This will hurt my CDMA carrier, Cellular South - largest privately owned carrier in the country - as they seem to have a hard-on for Kyocera for years now. With Nokia getting out of the CDMA business, this ruling looks like no new phones for us for a while.
"iPhone may become king..."
Yes, I'm sure it's the chip issue that's going to put the iPhone on top. Forget everything else. This is the nail in the competitors' coffins! Ridiculous.
So what does this mean to consumers? I'm failing to see the relevance. In other words, why should I care?
@Bay State Darren: I don't think there's been a cell phone made in the USA in over a decade now. Are you still using your 1980's Motorola brick phone?
This affects the importation of /new/ cellphone designs. They can still import any phone that has already been introduced in the US.
Quallcom is a POS company that even introduces their chips as full out broadcom clones which causes problems during flashing thinking your have a broadcom chip...
But anyways....what designs are these....
The knockoff RAZR [aka Sanyo Katana]
The knockoff Q [aka samsung blackjack]
Cant the asians stop stealing american and european designs already...
Honda, Toyota only succeeded by knocking off GM, Ford, MB, BMW, bosche...etc
Sony got ahead by ripping off american scientists, philips [cds], european scientists[blu ray], IBM[failed vaio line], and now they are going after american movie studios which make the set of movie studios releasing new movies into one studio releasing crummy movies....
Like WarnerBrothersParamountUnitedArtistsMGMSony Pictures, yes, thats only 2 words.
Ah crap. Missed that jok
Ah crap. Missed that joke ;) My bad.
Rest assured that Bush will Veto this one. Far too many people in DC that get money from Qualcomm.
Qualcomm has been defending their patents unfairly for years, and now their silly game has backfired on them.