Qualcomm buys 2,400 patents from HP including Palm technology

Company looks to boost mobile arsenal

Qualcomm has announced a deal with HP to purchase 2,400 patents in order to strengthen its position in the market. The patents formed part of the Palm, iPAQ and Bitfone technologies owned by HP.

Patents are highly valuable commodities in the tech community at present as companies constantly engage in legal action against one another over alleged infringements. Notable cases have seen Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Google and Microsoft all embroiled at one time or another.

Qualcomm confirmed it had bought 1,400 patents pending or granted applicable in the US and 1,000 patents pending or granted in other nations around the world. The value of patents was not disclosed but Qualcomm said it would help strength its position in the mobile market.

"The acquisition further enhances the strength and diversity of Qualcomm Incorporated's industry-leading mobile patent portfolio and will enable the company to offer even more value to current and future licensees," it said.

The deal would appear to officially mark the end of Palm's history with HP, after it was bought by the company for $1.2bn in 2010. The move was supposed to push HP's mobile offerings around tablets and possibly phones, but its ill-fated TouchPad failed to sell and HP soon abandoned the platform.

The company then spun out the Palm division as an open source operation with some of the technology taken on by LG for its TVs. By selling the rest to Qualcomm HP has drawn a line under any attempts to develop its own operating system and will stick with Windows and Android for the future.