And Nokia, among others, is being sued in federal court for patent infringement (in additiion to the ITC suit, which only concerns a ban on imports or similar remedies). Treble damages are applicable when a plaintiff can prove intentional infringement. If Nokia continued selling phones with QCOM IP and no valid license from QCOM . . . . need we say more?
I have never understood jurisdiction on cases like this. Just to restate what you are saying....
A US court could rule Qualcomm's patents valid and that Nokia was guilty of "willful infringement". They would then total up the damages....even based on handsets never designed, manufactured or sold in the US and could potentially triple that amount? Why would US patents apply to products never in the US?
However, if you are right then Qualcomm's WCDMA chipset sales are also going to be at risk. Lupin and Jha are both on the record saying that sales will continue after that date, and I think it is pretty clear that Q's chipsets would be violating Nokia's patents. Of course, treble damages on chipsets are substantially smaller than treble damages on handsets.
Here is a quote from Lupin about both companies continuing to ship product after April....around the 3 hour 42 minute mark.
"It would not be the case that on April of 07 when these rights expire that either company would be able to stop immediately the other company from selling chips, selling handsets. There would be a period of time as the court cases progressed, where both companies would continue to sell. In that situation we would continue to generate chip sales, continue to generate royalties from our other licensees. Nokia, in that case, since they arent licensed under our patents would have no obligation to pay royalties, would not be paying royalties during that timeframe so we would not be recognising that portion of the revenues."
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