Settlement of the multiple Nokia – Qualcomm lawsuits in the Delaware Chancery Court earlier this month did not put an end to the long losing streak of Qualcomm in the law courts. Yesterday Broadcom won a case against the company.

In the US Distrrict Court of Santa Ana, US District Judge James V. Selna found that Qualcomm violated an injunction he ordered last December designed to prevent Qualcomm from continued infringement of three Broadcom patents.

"Over the past two years, Qualcomm has been found to have infringed four Broadcom patents, abused the standards-setting process, and committed gross discovery misconduct, and now has been held in contempt of a court-ordered injunction," said David Rosmann, Broadcom’s v-p, intellectual property litigation.

The Santa Ana court also found that Qualcomm violated the injunction by failing to pay royalties to Broadcom.

The court ordered Qualcomm to pay Broadcom the gross profits Qualcomm has earned on its infringing QChat (walkie talkie) products. Judge Selna further ordered Qualcomm to pay Broadcom’s lawyers’ fees.

Qualcomm said it would appeal "those issues on which the Court has ruled against it".

Broadcom brought the case in 2005 and was awarded nearly $20m in damages two years later for Qualcomm’s infringement of its patents.