Broadcom (Irvine, Calif.) said it filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleging that Emulex (Costa Mesa, Calif.) infringes on 10 Broadcom patents related to networking and communications technologies.

The patents involved cover a broad range of high-speed data and storage networking technologies, including IC design, serdes, TCP offload engine , remote direct memory access, fibre channel, and fibre channel over Ethernet technologies, Broadcom said.

In a statement, David Rosmann, Broadcom's vice president for intellectual property litigation, said the company alleges that Emulex is infringing Broadcom patents in competing with Broadcom's existing and future products.

"We believe Emulex is infringing a broad range of Broadcom patents; we are concerned that Emulex's infringement is pervasive," Rossmann said.

Emulex issued a statement later Monday saying the company is reviewing the patents associated with the Broadcom complaint. "Emulex has a policy of vigorously defending the company against assertions of this kind," the company said.

Earlier this year, Broadcom tried for several months to acquire Emulex, including the initiation of a tender offer that was eventually worth $11 per share. Emulex' board of directors repeatedly rejected Broadcom's overtures and advised shareholders not to accept the tender offer, saying it undervalued the company.

Broadcom abandoned the takeover attempt in July, saying it did not intend to offer more than $11 per share.