BlackBerry will walk away from its patent royalties spat with Qualcomm with more than $100 million more than the original figure awarded to the Canadian company in April.
In a brief statement last week, BlackBerry indicated Qualcomm has agreed to pay a total award of $940 million to settle a patent royalties spat started in April 2016. BlackBerry indicated the figure includes “certain royalties due from BlackBerry for calendar 2016 and the first quarter of calendar 2017,” as well as attorneys’ fees and interest.
The final arbitration total is around $125 million more than the $814.9 million the arbitration panel first awarded BlackBerry last month.
The award wraps up a dispute between the two companies relating to whether Qualcomm’s voluntary per unit royalty cap program applied to BlackBerry’s non-refundable prepayments of royalties for sales of a specified number of subscriber units from 2010 through the end of 2015. BlackBerry said Qualcomm will pay the full $940 million on or before May 31.
Qualcomm commented back in April that it didn’t agree with the panel’s decision, but noted the ruling was “binding and not appealable.” BlackBerry CEO John Chen at the time said his company was “pleased” with the decision, and looked forward to collaborating with Qualcomm on “security for ASICs and solutions for the automotive industry.”
The settlement comes both as BlackBerry has stepped up its engagement in patent battles, and as Qualcomm dukes it out with Apple and the FTC in other patent wars. More on BlackBerry’s recent litigation against Nokia for allegedly infringing on 11 patents is here. Details on the latest salvo in the Qualcomm/Apple saga here.