Geeez, can't I leave you guys alone for even a moment without the
constant bickering over a lone MOT/COMS story best left on the
dungheap of 28K? You had two versions and that should have been
enough. Ok, here's a third, now learn to share!
Motorola, 3Com Settle Modem Lawsuit; Sign Licensing Agreement
Schaumburg, Illinois, March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Motorola Inc.
settled a lawsuit it filed against a unit of 3Com Corp. for
alleged patent violations of its modem technology. It said the
two companies agreed to share all modem-related technologies.
Motorola filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Boston
last February against U.S. Robotics Corp., which 3Com acquired in
June. Motorola had accused U.S. Robotics of illegally using its
so-called V.34 technology, used in 33-Kilobits-per-second modems.
Today's agreement lets 3Com continue using V.34 in its 33K
analog modems, which connect computer users to the Internet over
phone lines. It also gives Motorola access to all 3Com patents
related to a new standard technology for faster 56-Kbps modems.
The settlement ends a year of legal and technical wrangling
for 3Com and its modem rivals as it pushed its version of 56K as
a standard technology. Rockwell International Corp. pushed its
rival scheme, and the battle delayed a standard for 56K products,
causing many potential customers to delay modem purchases. This
month Rockwell and 3Com blamed slowing modem sales for their
lower-than-expected quarterly financial results.
''These legal disputes did a lot of harm to the modem
marketplace,'' said Abner Germanow, an analyst with International
Data Corp.
Shares of 3Com rose 1 1/8 to 36 11/16 in midafternoon
trading. Motorola fell 3/16 to 56 5/16.
A similar suit Motorola filed against Rockwell last year
also was settled before it went to trial. Although Motorola
doesn't make analog modem chipsets, the brains behind the
devices, it developed several of the mathematical formulas, or
algorithms, used in V.34 technology.
3Com controls about half of the market for telephone-based
modems and makes its own modem chipsets, the brains that control
the devices. Most of its rivals, including Hayes Corp. and
Diamond Multimedia Communications Inc., use Rockwell chipsets.
Officials from 3Com and Motorola said they are satisfied
with the settlement. Neither company would provide details of the
licensing agreement.
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