Communication Solutions

Sprint Nextel (News - Alert) Corp. has said that it does not see any delay in its plan to launch QChat, despite a court ruling against Qualcomm Inc.

 

Recently, Federal District Judge, James V. Selna issued an injunction against certain Qualcomm products in the United States market that were found to infringe three Broadcom (News - Alert) patents.

 

However, the ruling provides a “sunset” provision on the order until Jan. 31, 2009 for QChat and 1x/EV-DO products -- which were found to infringe any of the three patents by providing Qualcomm (News - Alert) a limited license -- if the company pays royalties. 

 

“We're pleased the judge did not issue an immediate injunction on the patent related to QChat technology and we do not anticipate any interruption and delay in QChat deployment due to this dispute,” Matthew Sullivan, spokesman at Sprint, told Reuters.

 

“We're still assessing the impact but at this time we think all our handset providers will be covered by the sunset provision,” Sullivan said.

 

Developed by Qualcomm, QChat is a Push-to-Talk technology (PTT). When offered by a wireless provider on its third-generation (3G) CDMA network, QChat allows two-way, PTT communications for users.

 

In 2006, Sprint Nextel had announced an agreement to use Qualcomm’s QChat solution to deliver a CDMA push-to-talk solution in 2008, which offers similar performance to its legacy Nextel DirectConnect and can interoperate with the push-to-talk users on the former Nextel’s iDEN network.

 

Reportedly, Sprint Nextel Corp. is set to make available as many as six new walkie-talkie style phones this year using Qualcomm Inc.'s QChat technology.

 

According to a Reuters report published Oct. 2007, the company plans to start the service with phones from Motorola Inc, Samsung (News - Alert) Electronics, LG Electronics, and Sanyo Electric.