The most celebrated battle in the multifront war between Qualcomm and Broadcom has been the Big Q's suit alleging that Broadcom infringed its patents on video compression technology--the case in which San Diego federal district court judge Rudi Brewster ruled that Qualcomm had deliberately failed to disclose patents to a standards-setting body. Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed Judge Brewster's finding that Qualcomm breached its duty to disclose its patents to the standards-setting body. It also upheld his award of attorneys' fees to Broadcom.

Once upon a time, Paul Daugerdas generated hundreds of millions of dollars for Jenkens & Gilchrist by blessing dubious tax shelter deals. Then the feds got wind of his role. In 2007 Daugerdas's tax shelter work led to the demise of his onetime firm. Now it's led to his indictment on tax fraud and conspiracy charges.

Star's claims that RJR ripped off its supposedly safer method for curing tobacco have been banging around the federal trial and appellate courts for more than a decade without quite hitting their target. Now the two tobacco companies appear finally to have called a truce.

In the seemingly never-ending saga of Rambus's patent war against chip makers, Rambus was slapped hard on Friday by a Delaware federal district court judge, who accused the company of conduct that was "obstructive at best."