SAN DIEGO, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- U.S. wireless telephone chip maker QualComm Inc. said its top lawyer had resigned following a series of undesirable legal rulings.
Executive Vice President and General Counsel Louis Lupin, 52, is being replaced temporarily by Carol Lam, 48, while the company searches for a permanent replacement, the San Diego chip maker said.
Lam is a former U.S. attorney in San Diego who joined Qualcomm in February.
Lupin's resignation follows three setbacks last week in a legal war with chip maker Broadcom Corp. of Irvine, Calif.
U.S. District Court Judge Rudi Brewster wrote Qualcomm appeared to have engaged in an "organized program of litigation misconduct" in a patent-infringement case Broadcom won earlier this year.
The Bush administration also let stand an International Trade Commission ruling that barred imports of future handsets containing QualComm chips that were held to infringe on Broadcom patents.
And a federal judge in Santa Ana, Calif., tentatively ruled Friday that Qualcomm should pay Broadcom twice the $19.64 million in damages that was initially awarded in May in a separate patent case, The Wall Street Journal reported.
