Washington – Qualcomm Inc. chips will be banned from new cellphone models sold in the U.S. after a trade agency said the products infringe a patent owned by rival Broadcom Corp.
Semiconductors made by Qualcomm, the world’s second- biggest maker of the cellphone chips, can continue to be sold in handsets already on the market, the U.S. International Trade Commission said Thursday. The decision must be reviewed by President Bush and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab.
The trade commission, in a 4-2 vote, said it will order customs officials to block imports of some handsets using Qualcomm chips that provide high-speed Internet access on mobile phones.
The company also will be banned from bringing the semiconductors into the U.S. for testing, the agency said.
The commission found that while excluding all phones would have hurt the U.S. economy, “the exemption for previously imported models sufficiently ameliorates this impact,” it said.
“It appears minor to Qualcomm rather than anything that would really hurt it in the market,” said Michael Cohen, a Pacific American Securities analyst who owns shares of Qualcomm.
