"YOU'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT": Back in May, Broadcom filed two lawsuits against Qualcomm, accusing it of infringing 10 patents. Broadcom also filed an antitrust lawsuit against Qualcomm to boot, accusing Qualcomm of engaging in unfair licensing practices for its CDMA technology, resulting in higher-price cell phones in the U.S. Broadcom said it was filing the suit to prevent the same situation occurring in the developing third-generation cell phone market.

In response, Qualcomm, now accuses Broadcom of using technology covered by seven of its patents without permission. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. court in San Diego, accuses Broadcom of infringing six of Qualcomm's patents related to integrated circuits for use in Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) phones and infringing a seventh patent related to semiconductor chips for Wi-Fi devices.

Qualcomm, in a statement, said the GSM-related infringements focus on features added to GSM capabilities that Qualcomm has pioneered in CDMA wireless devices.

Broadcom, in a statement, dismissed Qualcomm's lawsuit as a response to its May patent infringement suits.

This is shaping up to be a battle-royale on the scale of the old Texas Instruments/IBM/Wang litigations that scorched through the 80's - stay tuned . . .