The deal has a payment cap of $40 million per quarter, and a maximum of $200 million total.

David Rosmann, Broadcom's VP of IP, speculated that it was "very unusual" for payments to be made by a company that is so far downstream from the alleged patent infringer - Verizon being a customer of the handset makers who are Qualcomm's direct customers. "Unfortunately, a customer two steps removed was forced to step up to the plate," he smugly sympathized.

Under the deal, Broadcom will request to U.S. authorities that products sent to Verizon be exempt from the injunction. But the order, unless overturned on appeal or by unlikely presidential veto, would still apply to A&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint-Nextel.

Qualcomm is unclear whether Verizon's settlement would affect its efforts to overturn the ITC order. "It's a difficult and complex process to assess," said Qualcomm general counsel Louis Lupin. But the Broadcom-Verizon agreement could provide Qualcomm an argument that the injunction is inequitable in its haste, and more correctly resolved though a negotiated or court-ordered monetary settlement.

Verizon Wireless was considered as one of the companies that could be most hurt by the ban, as it is reliant on phones with chips from Qualcomm for the vast majority of its high-speed wireless services.

"We're doing it for certainty for our customers and for our business," Verizon Wireless mouthpiece Nancy Stark cooed. "It takes our customers out of the middle of a patent dispute and for our business it gives us the certainty that our business supply chain won't be interrupted."

There is a larger frame to the Verizon-Broadcom agreement, as they publicly announced entering into a "strategic" alliance involving technology development, and for Verizon, Broadcom as a supplier.

Shortly after the deal went down, Broadcom reported a decline in Q2 net income by 67%, to $34.3 million, with a drop in revenue of nearly 5%, to $898 million.

One commenter noted the hypocrisy of Broadcom's patent "reform" political stance: "Isn't Broadcom shaking down Verizon with IP purchased from Unova the exact tactics they are lobbying to prohibit?"