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Writer's pictureBy The Financial District

Arm-Qualcomm Legal Battle Roils Chip Industry

Arm Holdings Plc’s legal dispute with Qualcomm Inc. is being argued before a federal jury in Delaware this week, pitting two of the world’s most influential chipmakers against each other in an intellectual property case that could have significant consequences for the technology industry, Jef Feeley, Josh Sisco, and Ian King reported for Bloomberg News.


Arm contends that the agreement it had with Nuvia needed to be renegotiated after Qualcomm purchased the company. I Photo: JonThackray Wikimedia Commons



At the center of the dispute is Qualcomm’s 2021 acquisition of chip startup Nuvia and the licensing agreement to use Arm’s technology.


Arm contends that the agreement it had with Nuvia needed to be renegotiated after Qualcomm purchased the company, and it has demanded that Qualcomm destroy the chip designs obtained through the acquisition.



Qualcomm, which is relying on Nuvia’s products to expand its presence in the computer processor market, argues that it already had a separate licensing contract with Arm that covers the work.


This high-stakes case has drawn intense scrutiny from the chip industry, as many major tech companies depend on technology licensed from both Arm and Qualcomm.



“The fact is we have someone using our unlicensed technology,” Arm Chief Executive Officer Rene Haas told jurors during the first day of court testimony. “Arm is an intellectual property company, and we have to protect our inventions.”


Qualcomm’s attorney, Karen Dunn, defended the company during her opening arguments, asserting that Qualcomm had its own license to use Arm’s technology and has consistently respected contractual agreements.



Dunn also claimed that internal documents from Arm, which will be presented during the trial, acknowledge that Qualcomm’s licensing contract is “bombproof.”


UK-based Arm, majority-owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp., specializes in designing chips and licensing its instruction sets — the codes enabling software to communicate with processors.




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