This report of proceedings in the Qualcomm case is the exception to the rule of making no admission absent a gun to the head.  At stake are attorney fees in a huge patent case.

"“Lawyers can make mistakes,” said Bill Boggs, Qualcomm’s new lead attorney in the case.
He explained how the San Diego company had failed to turn over 46,610 documents, totaling 332,101 pages, to Broadcom in the pretrial discovery phase and how Qualcomm had introduced misstatements of fact into the trial.

“It’s not intentional,” he said. Later, Boggs said, “Mistakes were made. Documents should have been produced.” Irvine-based chipmaker Broadcom won the case by convincing a jury during a three-week January trial in San Diego federal court that it had not infringed on two of Qualcomm’s video compression patents.

Ordinarily, Broadcom would be responsible for paying its own attorneys’ fees – which likely run in the millions of dollars. But Broadcom lead attorney William Lee argued yesterday that the case was “exceptional,” a legal term that means a patent-infringement case was prosecuted in bad faith, with gross negligence or with misconduct, and therefore Broadcom was entitled to have Qualcomm pay the Broadcom attorneys.

“This is not, as Qualcomm has said, an innocent oversight, a common mistake or everyday litigation occurrence,” Lee said. "

Perhaps Qualcomm believes a small admission now will save big $$ later.