A US district court judge has allowed Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) to continue selling some chips whose designs infringe patents held by Broadcom until the end of January 2009, but has banned the sale of 3G WCDMA chips that infringe patents, reports Reuters. For the chips it can continue selling Qualcomm must pay Broadcom mandatory royalties, and can only sell EV-DO chips it was offering as of May 29 2007, and only to customers it had at that time. “U.S. District Judge James Selna ruled, however, that Qualcomm must immediately stop selling third-generation, or 3G, WCDMA cellular chips that infringe on the Broadcom patents.” The various legal battles are complicated, but this seems to be an effective replacement to the ITC ban which was overturned in September.

SEE ALSO: Broadcom Seeking Injunction Against Qualcomm’s 3G Business

Broadcom has issued a release with all the details, noting that the injunction is also against the QChat “push-to-talk” software.

Update: Qualcomm announced today that it has launched new 3G WCDMA chipsets that work around the court’s patent-infringement ruling, and are expected to be in handsets before the end of first quarter. The alternative chipsets specifically cover technology that help phones transfer high-resolution videos from one format to another. It has also said it will appeal the ruling and is “evaluating all of its options.” Should the ruling remain, Qualcomm said it expected both short and long-term impact as customers sought out alternatives, especially if the company couldn’t deliver workarounds that enable “push to talk” services by the January 2009 sunset deadline.