Qualcomm wins a legal battle over Arm chip licensing

A federal jury in Delaware determined on Friday that Qualcomm didn’t breach its agreement with Arm through its 2021 acquisition of Nuvia, a startup founded by three former Apple engineers. As reported earlier by Bloomberg and Reuters, the decision stems from a two-year-long legal battle that accused Qualcomm of misusing the chip designs Arm licensed to Nuvia before its acquisition.

Despite delivering a win for Qualcomm, the jury couldn’t determine whether Nuvia breached its agreement with Arm, meaning the case can be tried again. “I don’t think either side had a clear victory or would have had a clear victory if this case is tried again,” US District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika said, according to Reuters.

Qualcomm bought Nuvia for $1.4 billion to bolster the company’s lineup of next-generation chips, like the Snapdragon X chips inside current Copilot Plus laptops. Still, testimony during the trial revealed that Qualcomm's internal documents also showed the company projected it could save as much as $1.4 billion every year on payments to Arm.

In 2022, Arm ignited a legal battle after Qualcomm continued to pay its existing royalty fees to Arm, which were allegedly much lower than what Nuvia was paying. After the two failed to come to an agreement, Arm argued the designs licensed to Nuvia were no longer valid, and that Qualcomm should destroy the technology created with them.

During an interview on Decoder this week, Arm CEO Rene Haas couldn’t share much about the trial, but said, “The principles as to why we filed the claim are unchanged.”

The jury ultimately sided with Qualcomm after viewing Arm’s internal documents that estimate Arm could’ve lost $50 million in revenue as a result of Nuvia’s acquisition, according to Reuters. This week, Nuvia co-founder Gerard Williams also testified that the startup only used “one percent or less” of Arm technology in its finished technology, Reuters reported.

“The jury has vindicated Qualcomm’s right to innovate and affirmed that all the Qualcomm products at issue in the case are protected by Qualcomm’s contract with ARM,” Ann Chaplin, Qualcomm’s general counsel and corporate secretary, said in an emailed statement to The Verge. “We will continue to develop performance-leading, world class products that benefit consumers worldwide, with our incredible Oryon ARM-compliant custom CPUs.”

The Verge reached out to Arm with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.