The long-running patent infringement dispute between Broadcom and SiRF has popped up again. Last year an ITC administrative law judge found that SiRF infringed on six GPS-related patents held by Global Locate, a subsidiary of Broadcom. Later in the year the International Trade Commission upheld three of those patents while holding off on the other three pending further review. As expected, the Commission ruled in favor of Broadcom, issuing an “exclusion order against SiRF’s infringing GPS chips and products containing these chips imported by certain SiRF customers and cease and desist orders against SiRF and specified SiRF customers.”
All of the Global Locate patents are US patents so SiRF will likely have to make some changes if it wants to continue supplying American-sold GPS systems. It’s a pretty hard blow for the semiconductor manufacturer, especially in the current economy. And the worst part for the GPS chipmaker is that it’s not over yet.
Broadcom has now filed another patent infringement suit against SiRF, this time calling into question four patents related to multimedia processors and GPS receivers. This case is scheduled to hit the courts in November 2010.
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