It’s too early to put an end to the Arm-Qualcomm dispute over the intellectual property of the former Nuvia, although representatives of the other side said early last month that Arm no longer demands a ban on the sale of its Snapdragon X processors for PCs. The actions of Arm representatives during this standoff have already become the reason for Qualcomm to file a lawsuit in court for other reasons.
Image source: Qualcomm Technologies
As EE Times explains, on January 3 this year, Qualcomm filed a lawsuit accusing Arm of anti-competitive behavior on several counts. First, Arm allegedly holds onto Qualcomm’s intellectual property, which it is required to transfer under the licensing agreement between the companies. In particular, this concerns Qualcomm’s development of processor cores using Arm’s architecture.
Secondly, Qualcomm accuses Arm of trying to sow doubts among the former’s customers about its ability to fulfill its obligations to supply products. The British holding, according to Qualcomm, achieved this through a previous lawsuit, trying to prohibit the supply of Snapdragon X processors using developments from Nuvia, which came under Qualcomm’s control.
Third, Qualcomm claims that Arm intentionally released the revocation letter during the Snapdragon Summit to cause maximum damage to the plaintiff’s business reputation. Arm subsequently rescinded the revocation notice. The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in March next year, so this saga is likely to drag on.
Moreover, the previous legal dispute has not been settled. As is known, the jury acquitted Qualcomm on only two of the three charges brought by Arm. In particular, it did not decide whether Nuvia was guilty of violating the license agreement with Arm. The latter insists on a full review of the entire case from the beginning. The judge insisted on mediation of the dispute between the parties on this issue before the retrial. In addition, Arm retains the opportunity to file an appeal.
Qualcomm also claims that Arm itself failed to comply with the terms of its agreement with Nuvia regarding the protection of confidential information. The former company insists that Arm engineers testified in court that management failed to instruct them to destroy Nuvia’s confidential data after unilaterally terminating the agreement with Arm. According to Qualcomm, this allowed Arm engineers to compare Nuvia’s intellectual property with Qualcomm’s, thereby violating the terms of the license agreement between Arm and Qualcomm. The allegations of Arm’s misconduct in this area were made in a lawsuit filed on January 29 of this year, and the case is set to go to trial in 2026.
According to Qualcomm representatives, Arm CEO Rene Haas also provided the court with false information about the company’s intentions, concealing its readiness to develop its own chips. Rumors about Arm’s plans for such a company appeared shortly after the court hearing, but they cannot be considered legitimate evidence of “cunning” on the part of the British holding’s management. Such decisions are usually made in advance, and there is some possibility that the Arm CEO already knew about the company’s preparations for developing its own chips, testifying in court in the Qualcomm and Nuvia case. If this is proven, Arm will not have anything good in store.