Qualcomm Inc. v. Broadcom Corp.

Facts

D filed a motion to ask the Court to sanction P for its failure to produce tens of thousands of documents that D had requested in discovery. P initiated this patent infringement action alleging D's infringement of P patents. P sought injunctive relief, compensatory damages, attorneys' fees, and costs. D filed a counterclaim that one of the patents is unenforceable due to inequitable conduct, and an affirmative defense that both patents are unenforceable due to waiver. D sought information about P’s participation in the JVT which set standards for H.264 which governs video coding. D issued discovery and P, in a discovery response signed by attorney Kevin Leung, stated: 'Qualcomm will produce non-privileged relevant and responsive documents describing QUALCOMM's participation in the JVT, if any, which can be located after a reasonable search.' P also committed to producing 'responsive non-privileged documents that were given to or received from standards-setting body responsible for the ISO/IEC MPEG-4 Part 10 standard. D stated that it submitted four proposals to the JVT in 2006 but had no earlier involvement. The statement that 'Qualcomm's investigation concerning this interrogatory is ongoing and Qualcomm reserves the right to supplement its response to this interrogatory as warranted by its investigation.' Kevin Leung signed both of these interrogatory responses. P designated Christine Irvine as the corporation's most knowledgeable person on the issue of involvement in the JVT. Although attorney Leung prepared Irvine for her deposition, it did not search her computer for any relevant documents or emails or provide her with any information to review. Irvine testified falsely that P had never been involved in the JVT. D quickly impeached Irvine with documents. P designated Scott Ludwin as the new representative to testify about P's knowledge of and involvement in the JVT. Leung prepared and defended Ludwin at his deposition. P did not search Ludwin's computer for any relevant documents nor take any other action to prepare him. Ludwin testified falsely. D again produced documents. Ludwin claimed he did not recognize the document. This document became critical to D as it was the only evidence in D's possession indicating the truth-that P had been actively involved in the JVT and the development of the H.264 standard in 2002. Participation in the JVT in 2002 or early 2003 during the creation of the H.264 standard would have prohibited P from suing companies. P submitted an expert declaration confirming the absence of any corporate records indicating P's participation in the JVT. Numerous attorneys reviewed the declaration. P dismissed the appearance of Raveendran's email address on the JVT ad hoc group email reflector list and denied any suggestion that the email reflector list indicated Raveendran received any JVT-related information or otherwise had any involvement in the JVT ad hoc committee. P filed (1) a Motion in Limine to exclude evidence relating to P's participation in the JVT, declaring that the 'facts demonstrate' P 'did not participate in JVT deliberations while the H.264 standard was being created' and the same for H.264. P made these same arguments numerous times for various court motions including for Judgment as a Matter of Law. P forcefully presented the same arguments at trial. While preparing P witness Viji Raveendran to testify at trial, attorney Adam Bier discovered an August 6, 2002 email to viji@qualcomm.com welcoming her to the avc_ce mailing list. They discovered 21 separate emails after a simple search on Viji's computer, none of which P had produced in discovery. P decided not to produce these newly discovered emails to D, claiming they were not responsive to D's discovery requests. The trial team failed to conduct any investigation to determine whether there were more emails that also had not been produced. Attorney Stanley Young at a sidebar argued against the admission of the December 2002 avc_ce email reflector list, declaring: 'Actually, there are no emails -- there are no emails ... there's no evidence that any email was actually sent to this list. This is just a list of email ... addresses. There's no evidence of anything being sent.' None of the P attorneys who were present during the sidebar mentioned the emails found on Raveendran's computer a few days earlier. Raveendran was called to the stand and on direct Lee Patch pointedly did not ask her any questions that would reveal the fact that she had received the 21 emails from the avc_ce mailing list; instead, he asked whether she had 'any knowledge of having read' any emails from the avc_ce mailing list. On cross-examination, D asked the right question. Again, at sidebar Patch spun the news indicating that they were not necessarily responsive to discovery but admitted he had not seen the emails. P produced the emails, and the jury returned verdicts favorable to D. Judge Brewster found in favor of D on P inequitable conduct. Judge Brewster found: by clear and convincing evidence that P, its employees, and its witnesses actively organized and/or participated in a plan to profit heavily by (1) wrongfully concealing the patents-in-suit while participating in the JVT and then (2) actively hiding this concealment from the Court, the jury, and opposing counsel during the present litigation. Judge Brewster further found that P's 'counsel participated in an organized program of litigation misconduct and concealment throughout discovery, trial, and post-trial before new counsel took over the lead role in the case on April 27, 2007.' The judge awarded attorney fees and cost from P’s misconduct. Judge Brewster ordered P to pay D $9,259,985.09 in attorneys' fees and related costs, as well as post-judgment interest on the final fee award of $8,568,633.24 at 4.91. After trial, P continued to stonewall, and it was admitted that P had thousands of relevant unproduced documents and that their review of these documents 'revealed facts that appear to be inconsistent with certain arguments that [counsel] made on P's behalf at trial and in the equitable hearing following trial.' They found more than forty-six thousand documents (totaling more than three hundred thousand pages), which had been requested but not produced in discovery.

Issues

Rule of Law

Holding and Decision

Legal Analysis

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