Microtune Inc. has won the latest round in a patent war against fellow
chip-maker Broadcom Corp.
A jury in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas decided that
Broadcom infringed on a Microtune patent covering a single-chip tuner design for
radio-frequency systems.
The court will likely schedule a hearing in the next 30 days to consider a
Microtune injunction request preventing Broadcom from using the technology, as
well as determining damages.
Microtune developed the silicon design in 1999 for broadband devices
including cable modems and digital set-top boxes. Two years ago, Microtune filed
a patent-infringement suit against Broadcom, which had come up with a similar
design.
Since then, the two vendors have traded patent-infringement suits, including
a claim Broadcom filed in the U.S. District Court's Northern California
District. That suit, which is still pending, seeks to bar Microtune from
building and selling devices that it says infringe on patents regarding
electrostatic discharge-protection circuits and wireless technology.
Microtune also filed a suit in another Texas district court claiming that
Broadcom's cable-modem-silicon strategy violates the Texas Anti-Trust
Act.
