High Tech Computer (HTC) announced the HTC Touch Diamond today. The Touch Diamond utilizes 3G (third generation) mobile technology. The device runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and has a touch screen that can be used one-handed. Apple hasn’t said when it will launch a 3G phone, but the company is expected to do so later this year.

Starting this June, the Touch Diamond will be available in Europe. The Asian and Middle Eastern markets will follow, with sales hitting North and South America in the second half of 2008.

“Today we mark a new era in mobile-phone evolution, an era where beauty and size integrate with uncompromising innovation at broadband speeds,” said Peter Chou, HTC president and CEO. “The HTC Touch Diamond will make browsing the Web and using Web-enabled applications just as practical and easy to use as making calls.”

Qualcomm chips allow the Touch Diamond to use High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) on Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) networks that allow data speeds up to 7.2 Mbits per second.

The Touch Diamond has a 2.8 inch touch-screen that has a resolution of 640 pixels by 480 pixels. TouchFlo software can make images look 3D and turning the handset sidewise rotates the view accordingly.

The Touch Diamond has a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus that allows video calling. The battery life lasts up to four hours of talk time and the handset has 4G bytes of flash memory for storing music and video.

This isn’t the first time HTC beat Apple to the punch. Last year HTC launched its first Touch handset nearly a month ahead of Apple’s iPhone launch.

Touch Diamond

A U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that banned Qualcomm from selling chips that infringed on three patents owned by Broadcom Corp. A California jury in 2007 found that Qualcomm didn’t have a right to the patents and the lower court placed an injunction on Qualcomm that stopped it from selling the chips.

“We are gratified that the U.S. Court of Appeals rejected Qualcomm’s motion for a stay, leaving in force the injunction against Qualcomm’s infringement issued by the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana,” Broadcom General Counsel David Dull said in a statement.

The chips in question are third-generation (3G) WCDMA chips. This technology provides much higher data speeds to mobile and portable wireless devices than most North American networks allow.

U.S. district Judge James Selna ordered Qualcomm to pay mandatory royalties to Broadcom for the chips it sells during the “sunset period” ending January 31, 2009. After the sunset period ends, Qualcomm will be barred from using the three Broadcom patents.

Qualcomm is currently working on 3G chips that will replace those patented by Broadcom. The new chips are slated to be ready by the end of the current quarter.

Court papers filed by Nokia claim Nokia has paid Qualcomm around $1 billion over 15 years to gain access to the chip maker’s early mobile technology patents. The papers, filed in a Delaware court, say the patents are now paid up and royalty-free, according to the terms of 1992 and 2001 agreements with Qualcomm.

A technology license pact expired on April 9, 2007, and the two companies have been fighting ever since. Analysts estimate that Nokia pays around $500 million a year for use of Qualcomm patents and it wants to reduce the sum.

Qualcomm bases its claim on the fact that Nokia continues to ship products that use Qualcomm patents, and therefore the patent lease continues on the same terms as those in the written agreements. Nokia says the cross-licensing agreement can only be extended in writing and that it has paid for the patent in full.

The companies have not disclosed the timeframe of so-called “early” patents, which stem from Qualcomm’s time as the leading developer of CDMA wireless technology.

CDMA technology, which is used in the United States and some Asian countries, failed to gain global adoption when competing against European GSM technology. But it has gained wider adoption in third-generation forms.

Nokia and Qualcomm have over a dozen legal fights pending in courts on three continents. Analysts see these cases as efforts by both companies to gain leverage over the other in an eventual license-pact renewal.

Mobile technology company Qualcomm lost another legal fight with Nokia. A British court ruled today that Qualcomm’s claim of patent infringement against handset maker Nokia were invalid. The U.K. High Court said Nokia had not infringed on patents regarding GSM mobile phone standards.

Qualcomm has been trying to bring an injunction against Nokia that would keep it from selling products using the GSM patents in the United Kingdom. GSM, or Global System for Mobile Communications, is the world’s dominant second-generation mobile phone technology standard.

Over the last two years, Qualcomm has filed 11 lawsuits in courts around the world. Qualcomm has yet to win a lawsuit against Nokia on the GSM issue.

”We are pleased with the Court’s decision that the patent claims are invalid and believe it is consistent with and supported by the facts,” said Nokia Chief Financial Officer Rick Simonson. ”This is the second court to conclude that Qualcomm does not have relevant and valid GSM patents.”

In February, the U.S. International Trade Commission refused Qualcomm’s petition for a review on an earlier decision, which said Nokia hadn’t infringed on three patents, as claimed by Qualcomm.

The two mobile phone technology companies have fought in court over patent-licensing agreements that expired in April, 2007. Qualcomm charges patent royalties for its technology to mobile phone manufacturers. Nokia and other phone makers claim the royalties are excessive.

Richard Windsor, an analyst at Japanese investment bank Nomura, said the legal battle will shift to a Delaware Court and a 3G patent dispute. Legal arguments are expected to begin this summer.

”Qualcomm is weak in GSM and we think it has been deploying a strategy of firing out legal long-shots,” said Windsor. ”The hope is that a victory in one of these cases will bring Nokia to the negotiating table, but, so far, it’s not achieved this.”
”The main focus now is going to be the Delaware case in July,” said Windsor. ”However, it’s our view that Qualcomm is unlikely to prevail in that case either.”

The world’s largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, has asked the United States to ban imports of chipsets made by Qualcomm Inc., along with phones and other products made with those chipsets. Nokia has told the International Trade Commission that the San Diego based company Qualcomm has not properly compensated Nokia for its technology.

As the mobile phone industry grows and provides more services than Dick Tracy could have imagined, legal disputes over money are more likely to occur. Once lucrative royalties may not look so good to patent holders, as their technology is used to deliver services that a few years ago didn’t exist.

Nokia and Qualcomm had a 2001 licensing agreement that lapsed in April of 2007. According to Paul Sagawa, an analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, in the past few years Nokia has paid Qualcomm around $100 million a quarter to license its chip technology. Nokia feels that it should pay a lower rate for Qualcomm patents because it has patents that control some of the new technology.

If this type of dispute escalates in the mobile phone industry, we may see all-out-war as patent users and patent holders fight for the lucrative fees that customers worldwide pay for new innovative services and technology. International trade lawyers may be able to rack up hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees, while service remains in limbo. In the end, it’s the consumer who pays for these fights with increased fees for new patent agreements and lawsuits. Why can’t Nokia and Qualcomm play nice?

[Via New York Times]

The Bush administration had declined to overrule the ITC decision to ban imports of new phones containing QUALCOMM chips following the commission’s decision in favor of Broadcomm in its patent infringement case.

In response QUALCOMM today announced that it will appeal and renew its request for a stay of the International Trade Commission ban, maintaining that none of Broadcom’s patent claims were infringed upon.

“While we are disappointed with today’s decision, we thank the Administration for taking the time to review this matter,” said Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, CEO of QUALCOMM. “We are committed to preserving the enormously successful mobile broadband industry in the U.S. and to protecting and advancing the significant gains that have already been achieved in communications, disaster preparedness and emergency response. We will pursue all legal and technical options available to us to minimize the impact of the ITC order on consumers, our customers and the entire wireless industry.”

QUALCOMM

Citing public interest, the International Association for the Wireless Telecommunications Industry (CTIA - The Wireless Association) has sent a letter to President Bush asking him to veto the U.S. International Trade Commission’s (ITC) recent decision to ban the importation of certain Qualcomm chips and chipsets.

In the letter, CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent argued the ban would hinder 911 emergency communication, cause “economic disruption,” and “force the redesign of virtually all handsets that utilize the chips.” Largent asked the President to support the decision of ITC Chairman Daniel Pearson, who dissented from the Commission’s resolution. The ITC determined the Qualcomm chips infringed a patent held by Broadcom. According to Largent, the chips are critical to wireless networks owned by AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint/Nextel and T-Mobile among others.

CTIA

A handful of stakeholders in the $3.3 billion mobile games industry have gotten together to organize an event to gather movers and influencers in the space. Digital Media Wire, I-play, Nokia and Qualcomm will host Mobile Games Insider on July 10 in Santa Monica, CA. The afternoon event’s goal is to explore the $3.3 billion mobile games industry and highlight the opportunities. It will also serve to discuss challenges the space needs to overcome to reach mass market adoption.

Speakers include a host of mobile and gaming industry professionals from companies like Glu Mobile, IGN Wireless, I-Play, Jamba, Nokia, Walt Disney Internet Group, Qualcomm. Analysts Billy Pidgeon from IDC and Seamus McAteer from M:Metrics are also scheduled to speak.

Mobile Games Insider

Three new handsets using the newest 65-nanometer (nm) chipsets are now commercially available, and more than 40 additional models using this new technology will be released from QUALCOMM this year. The company has announced this significant milestone in semiconductor process this week, and these new models offer greater power efficiency, slimmer form factors and greater support for high-speed data capabilities.

“QUALCOMM is committed to continually raising the bar for wireless users, delivering richer functionality that is more affordable and offers a better experience,” said Steve Mollenkopf, senior vice president of product management for QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies. “We are pleased to reach this milestone in cutting-edge process technology, together with our customers, and we look forward to enabling additional slim, smart and power-efficient 3G devices for the worldwide market.”

The newly released 65nm handset models include:

QUALCOMM

The U.S. International Trade Commission has ordered a ban on new 3G handsets that contain Qualcomm chips, as these infringe on a Broadcom patent. It gets a little confusing… see phones that have already been sold in the U.S. are exempt, and this includes future sales of the same model. Further, current handset brands don’t need to change either. But any new 3G devices will have to forgo the Qualcomm chip.

[Via mocoNews]