Qualcomm lawyer resigns amid setbacks

The general counsel of Qualcomm quit on Monday as the US chip technology company, which invented key parts of the 3G wireless standard, prepares for a legal showdown with European rival Nokia.

The company said that Lou Lupin had resigned immediately but, unusually, gave no reason for the departure. In a statement, Paul Jacobs, the chief executive officer, credited Mr Lupin with having done much to shape Qualcomm’s technology licensing strategy, which accounts for more than a third of its revenue.

Mr Lupin’s departure comes the week after Qualcomm suffered two setbacks in its broader legal campaign to assert its rights over the wireless technology used in the latest generation of high-speed wireless networks.

In one case, which had been expected, the White House refused to overturn a ruling by the International Trade Commission to ban imports into the US of some handsets using Qualcomm chipsets.

Separately, a district court judge delivered a stinging rebuke to Qualcomm’s legal team as he upheld a jury verdict from January that barred the company from enforcing two of its patents against US rival Broadcom. The judge said that Qualcomm had deliberately concealed information that was relevant to the case.

The criticism could prove damaging as Qualcomm prepares for its biggest legal campaign yet, in its battle against Nokia and possible action from the European Commission, according to analysts.

“It’s a legal precedent of a company that could have behaved extremely badly,” said Richard Windsor, an analyst at Nomura. The risk, he added, was “the damage that does to Qualcomm’s overall reputation, and how that might affect how judges and juries view the company in future cases that are far more important”.

The upheaval in Qualcomm’s legal team comes at an important moment in its broader effort to assert its rights to 3G technology. While both of last week’s setbacks involved intellectual property disputes with Broadcom, the coming showdown with Nokia is considered far more important to its business, as well as the broader 3G technology landscape.

The two companies failed to agree terms for renewing Nokia’s licence to Qualcomm technology in April, and the two have now embarked on a series of legal skirmishes that are expected to shape the final terms of a negotiated settlement, with actions to be heard in the UK and Germany this autumn.

Qualcomm said Carol Lam, a senior vice-president, would replace Mr Lupin as acting general counsel pending a search for a full-time replacement. Ms Lam, a former US attorney for the Southern District of California, joined Qualcomm in February this year. She left her last job during the removal of a number of US attorneys that sparked criticism of US attorney general Alberto Gonzales.