Date: 16/01/2009

U.S. ITC has affirmed infringement ruling against SiRF on GPS-related patents

U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has affirmed an ITC administrative law judge's initial determination that SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. infringes three additional GPS-related patents held by Global Locate, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Broadcom. The ITC issued an exclusion order against SiRF's infringing GPS chips and products containing these chips imported by certain SiRF customers and cease and desist orders against SiRF and specified SiRF customers.

The Commission's latest ruling brings the total number of Global Locate GPS-related patents that SiRF has been found are six patents. The six patents that SiRF was found to infringe are United States patents 6,417,801; 6,937,187; 6,606,346; 7,158,080; 6,704,651; and 6,651,000 -- relating to extended ephemeris assistance (Long Term Orbits), calculating time in GPS receivers, enhancing sensitivity in assisted GPS systems, and implementing hardware structures for parallel correlation.