A federal magistrate judge in San Diego issued sanctions Jan. 7 against six lawyers representing Qualcomm in its high profile patent battle with Broadcom.

The order stems from the lawyers' failure to produce documents requested by Broadcom in the case, which went to trial in January 2007. Five of the lawyers are from Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder, based in Cupertino, Calif., and one is from Heller Ehrman's Silicon Valley office.

“The evidence establishes that Qualcomm intentionally withheld tens of thousands of e-mails and that the sanctioned attorneys assisted, either intentionally or by virtue of acting with reckless disregard for their discovery obligations, in this discovery violation,” wrote Judge Barbara Major of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

Major said the 46,000 e-mails in question “would have dramatically undermined Qualcomm's arguments and likely resulted in adverse pretrial adjudication. … Accordingly, Qualcomm's failure to produce the massive number of critical documents at issue in this case significantly increased the scope, complexity and length of the litigation and justifies a significant monetary award.”

She also criticized Qualcomm's in-house lawyers, who she said should have been aware “that either the document search was inadequate or they were knowingly not producing tens of thousands of relevant and requested documents.”

Major awarded Broadcom all attorneys' fees and costs, which the company had already been awarded by federal Judge Rudi Brewster in August. In that ruling Brewster accused Qualcomm of “gross litigation misconduct” related to the withholding of the documents. Qualcomm's then-general counsel Lou Lupin resigned in August following Brewster's order.

Accordingly, Major ordered Qualcomm to pay more than $8,500 to Broadcom, with the figure to be reduced by the amount it pays Broadcom to satisfy Brewster's order. In August Broadcom estimated the amount could be $10 million.

The lawyers will also be referred to the California State Bar for an investigation into potential ethical violations and five of them must participate in a Case Review and Enforcement of Discovery Obligations program.