Broadcom to pay Microtune $22.5 million

Chipmaker Broadcom will pay $22.5 million to settle a patent dispute with rival Microtune, according to a regulatory document filed Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In addition, both companies will license each other's patents and drop all pending litigation. Earlier Monday, the two companies announced a settlement of the dispute, but did not outline any financial terms. The one-time payment by Broadcom was noted as part of a filing Microtune made with the SEC. A Broadcom representative had declined to comment on any financial provisions of the deal.

Under the patent cross-license deal, each company will be able to use the other's existing patents for the life of the patent, while new patents filed within the next four years will be licensed for 10 years. Microtune said in its filing that the patent licenses are royalty-free with the exception of its license to Broadcom for its dual conversion tuner products, for which it will get an unspecified royalty.

The two companies had a long-running legal dispute that had seen a number of patent claims brought in various venues.

In June, a Texas judge denied a Broadcom appeal of an International Trade Commission ruling that Microtune had not infringed on a Broadcom patent. In addition to the ITC complaint, Broadcom had filed a patent infringement suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Microtune first sued Broadcom for patent infringement in 2001 over a TV tuner chip.

The settlement comes as the parties were due in court in a hearing in which Broadcom was seeking a declaratory ruling that certain products did not infringe on Microtune patents.

Both companies said in statements that they "expressed satisfaction" with the settlement.