Don Clark

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit threw out an antitrust verdict against Qualcomm, overturning a ruling that had threatened the chip maker’s business model. The panel reversed a 2019 ruling by District Court Judge Lucy Koh, who found that Qualcomm had abused its monopoly position in wireless chips and overcharged mobile phone makers for its patents.

Being at the forefront of a new technology often provides a strategic advantage. That helps explain why there is so much scrapping now by companies and countries over a next wave of wireless technology known as 5G.

Qualcomm agreed to buy NXP Semiconductors NV for $39 billion, adding the top supplier of automotive chips to the San Diego (CA) company best known for designing smartphone chips. The agreement represents the biggest semiconductor deal ever, eclipsing Avago Technologies Ltd.’s pact to buy rival Broadcom Corp. for $37 billion, and behind only Dell Inc.’s $60 billion acquisition of EMC Corp. among pure tech deals. The deal values NXP at $110 a share, which represents a 34% premium over where NXP shares traded before The Wall Street Journal reported on the talks Sept. 29. Including debt, the deal is worth $47 billion.

NXP’s position in the fast-growing automotive-chip market was seen as a motivation for the deal because analysts say Qualcomm wants to supply its chips for self-driving cars. The combined company is expected to have annual revenue of more than $30 billion. The deal will reshape Qualcomm, pushing the company deeper into the process of making chips and expanding its product line beyond mobile devices. While Qualcomm derives most of its revenue from designing and selling chips, the company earns more than half of its profits from licensing its wireless patents to nearly all makers of mobile phones. NXP, which became a bigger manufacturer through the purchase in 2015 of Freescale Semiconductor, owns seven factories in five countries that turn silicon wafers into chips. Besides those plants, known as fabs, NXP operates seven facilities that package and test chips before they are sold.

A federal appeals court revived Apple's legal claims that handset maker Motorola Mobility copied its iPhone patents, but the ruling could weaken a separate case Apple is pressing against Samsung Electronics.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that an influential Chicago-based federal judge made multiple legal errors when he dismissed competing patent-infringement claims by Apple and Motorola in 2012. The court said Judge Richard Posner wrongly excluded expert testimony in a case where Apple and Motorola were each pressing claims the other owed monetary damages for infringement.

The ruling means that Apple will have a new chance to argue Motorola infringed its patents. In the latest case, Apple is seeking $2.2 billion from Samsung for infringing five patents. Samsung has countered by saying that Apple infringed two of its patents and is seeking $7 million.