Emulex pays Broadcom $58M in patent deal

Emulex pays Broadcom $58M in patent deal

SAN JOSE – Emulex Corp. agreed to pay Broadcom Corp. $58 million in a partial settlement of ongoing patent disputes between the two companies.

Under the deal Emulex gets a license to three Broadcom patents (U.S. Patents Nos. 7,471,691; 7,058,150 and 6,424,194) and related families for use in Fibre Channel products. Emulex in turn will provide “certain rights to Broadcom protecting Broadcom from Emulex patent assertions,” according to a joint statement from the companies.

In addition, Broadcom has agreed to drop some, but not all, of the patent infringement claims it has filed against Emulex. Some terms of the deal were made confidential.

The two companies have been locked in patent disputes since before Broadcom made an unsolicited bid to buy Emulex in April 2009 for $764 million. The move was seen as an attempt by Broadcom to expand into the rapidly growing storage networking market where Emulex had strengths in Fibre Channel over Ethernet and a board-level business.

The Emulex board rejected the bid within days, prompting Broadcom to raise its offer to $912 million which Emulex also turned down. Within two months Broadcom brought a suit for patent infringement against Emulex which won a partial legal victory earlier this year.
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