US Trade agency delays Qualcomm ruling until June 7

Qualcomm Inc, the world's second-biggest maker of mobile-phone chips, will have to wait until June 7 to discover whether a US trade agency will block handsets using its chips.

The US International Trade Commission (ITC), which was scheduled to decide yesterday, said it needed 13 more days to consider the issue. The agency in Washington didn't give a further explanation for the delay in an announcement posted on its Web site.

The ITC must decide the appropriate remedy after finding in December that Qualcomm's newest chips infringed a Broadcom Corp patent for a battery-saving feature. Phone-service providers and handset makers said a ruling against Qualcomm would disrupt the entire US mobile phone industry and the introduction of phones that have faster Internet access and better graphics.

Almost of Qualcomm's chips are made in Ireland, Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia and are brought into the US in handsets made by overseas manufacturers. Broadcom, based in Irvine, California, argued that the only way to stop the patent infringement is to block imports of the phones containing the Qualcomm chips.

"We hope the extra time will allow the Commissioners to craft an effective remedy to address the importation of infringing products," Broadcom spokesman Bill Blanning said by e-mail.

The four biggest phone-service providers -- AT&T Inc, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp and Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile -- said a ban would hurt billions of dollars of investments and future profits. Also opposing any ban are the handset manufacturers LG Electronics Inc, Motorola Inc, Samsung Electronics Co and Kyocera Corp.