License dispute over Nuvia cores: ARM largely loses to Qualcomm in court

Setback for ARM in the licensing dispute with Qualcomm: According to the jury's verdict on Friday, Qualcomm may integrate the CPU cores acquired with the purchase of the start-up Nuvia into its own processors. The license agreement that Nuvia had originally concluded with ARM was not violated as a result.

According to the ruling, Qualcomm's own license also covers the purchased custom cores. The Snapdragon X Elite, Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon 8 Elite for notebooks and smartphones are therefore legitimate.

The jurors were unable to agree on a third point of contention after hours of discussion, which is why it remains open. This concerned the question of whether the start-up Nuvia should have obtained ARM's approval before selling to Qualcomm.

Nuvia's sale remains a point of contention

According to the license agreement between Nuvia and ARM, Nuvia was only allowed to sell its own ARM license and ARM technology with ARM's consent. However, the situation is complicated: strictly speaking, Nuvia did not transfer its license because Qualcomm already had its own. And as the court ruled, Qualcomm's existing license was sufficient.

A central question in court was whether a designed CPU core is part of ARM technology and should have been destroyed when Nuvia's license ended, or whether it constitutes independent intellectual property.

• ARM's argument: without its own instruction set, there can be no ARM CPU core.
• Qualcomm's and Nuvia's reasoning: An instruction set does not determine the CPU design and has only a small impact on development. The instruction set primarily influences which instructions the decoder must understand. ARM had not yet certified the Nuvia core as ARM-compatible at the time of the Qualcomm takeover.

ARM used a piano analogy throughout the litigation, according to Tantra Analyst: ARM claimed that the piano design remains the same regardless of the size of the piano and is part of the license. Qualcomm retorted: Just because a company invents the piano doesn't mean it owns all the pianos in the world.

Qualcomm celebrates, ARM wants a reopening

Qualcomm feels vindicated by the ruling. "We are pleased with today's decision," the company announced after the verdict. "The jury has upheld Qualcomm's right to innovate and affirmed that all Qualcomm products at issue in this case are protected by Qualcomm's contract with ARM."

ARM, on the other hand, wants to request a reopening of the proceedings due to the outstanding dispute. "We are disappointed that the jury was unable to reach a consensus on the claims", a spokeswoman said. "We intend to request a retrial due to the jury's disagreement."

According to the Reuters news agency, Judge Maryellen Noreika recommended that ARM and Qualcomm settle their dispute out of court. In the event of a retrial, neither side would have the prospect of a clear victory.

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