Judge dismisses Arm's last legal claim against Qualcomm in licensing spat

Chip designer tells The Reg it plans to appeal

Qualcomm is claiming complete victory over Arm in their licensing spat, after a court in Delaware ruled it has not breached the terms of any architecture license agreement (ALA) with the chip designer.

This latest verdict [PDF] follows the court case at the end of last year, when a jury found largely in favor of the California chipmaker. This legal row concerned whether Qualcomm had broken the terms of its licenses with Arm when it acquired Nuvia, a startup developing Arm-based processors for the datacenter, and incorporated its technology into Qualcomm chips.

In those hearings, the jury was unable to reach a consensus on whether Nuvia had breached its own ALA with Arm. The final ruling this week by District Judge Maryellen Noreika finds in favor of Nuvia and Qualcomm, that Nuvia did not in fact breach its ALA with the UK-based chip designer.

This means that for the three issues raised in the December trial, the court has come down on the side of Qualcomm's in each case. As detailed previously, these were:

1. Did Arm prove that Nuvia had breached the terms of its architecture license agreement (ALA) with Arm?
2. Did Arm prove that Qualcomm breached the terms of Nuvia's ALA?
3. Did Qualcomm prove that its CPUs that include designs acquired in the Nuvia acquisition were licensed under its ALA?

"With the Court's decision today, Qualcomm and its subsidiary Nuvia have achieved a full victory," said Qualcomm's General Counsel & Corporate Secretary Ann Chaplin.

"This decision follows Qualcomm's December 2024 jury trial win and is a full and final judgment in Qualcomm's favor. Our right to innovate prevailed in this case and we hope Arm will return to fair and competitive practices in dealing with the Arm ecosystem," she added.

However, Arm indicated that it intends to appeal against the verdict.

"Arm remains confident in its position in its ongoing dispute with Qualcomm and will immediately file an appeal seeking to overturn the judgment," the company said in a statement sent to The Register.

This would seem to be at odds with Qualcomm's view of things, as its CEO Cristiano Amon told a conference call for investors earlier this year that Arm "has no current plan to terminate the Qualcomm Architecture License Agreement."

The crux of this legal battle centered on whether Qualcomm had the right to use Nuvia's technology after acquiring the company, despite Qualy already having licenses of its own.

Arm took the view that the licenses it had granted to Nuvia to design its own Arm-based chips could not simply be transferred to Qualcomm without its permission, and this would breach the license terms.

The Brit-based biz claimed Qualcomm had not obtained consent or a new licensing agreement, despite lengthy negotiations, but had pushed ahead with incorporating Nuvia technology into its chips, such as the Snapdragon X Elite used in laptops.

For its part, Qualcomm alleged Arm's lawsuit was "payback" for its earlier opposition to Nvidia's bid to buy the UK chip designer, which ultimately failed. It has also claimed Arm is aiming to produce its own datacenter processors, and sought to nobble Qualcomm as a potential rival in this market.

Neil Shah, Research VP at Counterpoint Research, said this court ruling is "monumental for Qualcomm," clearing the way for it to accelerate deployment of custom Nuvia-based CPU cores across a much broader spectrum of applications from PCs, smartphones, and automotive to high-performance computing domains like AI servers.

"While Arm's decision to pursue legal action was an understandable measure to protect its business, it was an unfortunate necessity that strained its relationship with a premier customer and partner," he said.

"Moving forward, it is imperative for Arm to seize this opportunity to mend fences and rebuild trust with Qualcomm," Shahn added, as it is a critical player in the Arm market.

Qualcomm's counter lawsuit against Arm for breach of contract and improper interference, which it filed [PDF] in April 2024, is still ongoing, with a trial expected in March 2026, so this entire saga is not over just yet. ®