ARM Wants A Retrial With Qualcomm In The Nuvia Licensing Dispute After The Jury Came To A Stalemate

A surprising turn of events transpired during the Qualcomm and ARM trial when an eight-man jury in a Delaware court was unable to conclude if Nuvia breached its licensing agreements with the British chip design firm, thus awarding the victory to the company that acquired the startup in 2021 for $1.4 billion. Naturally disappointed with the outcome but not accepting defeat, ARM says it wants a retrial with the chipset manufacturer as it strongly believes that its intellectual property has been taken unfair advantage of.

Judge has asked Qualcomm and ARM to settle their differences amicably, hinting at the possibility of multiple trials happening in the future

To recap, the jury found that Qualcomm did not violate any of ARM’s licensing agreements, which were available for the development of custom CPU cores called Oryon found in the Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus. Additionally, the jury also determined that Qualcomm’s existing licensing agreements with ARM covered its ability to continue the development of custom CPU cores that it obtained through the Nuvia acquisition. Unfortunately, the jury could not conclude if Nuvia violated that agreement. An ARM spokesperson has said that the company is disappointed with the decision, but the firm intends to retrial and protect its intellectual property.

“We are disappointed that the jury was unable to reach consensus across the claims. We intend to seek a retrial due to the jury’s deadlock. From the outset, our top priority has been to protect Arm’s IP and the unparalleled ecosystem we have built with our valued partners over more than 30 years. As always, we are committed to fostering innovation in our rapidly evolving market and serving our partners while advancing the future of computing.”

During the trial, Gerard Williams, co-founder of Nuvia in 2019 and one of the lead designers of Qualcomm’s custom Oryon cores, said that less than 1 percent of these in-house designs feature ARM technology. Qualcomm CEO Christiano Amon also testified that the encouragement behind acquiring Nuvia was to save as much as $1.4 billion in licensing payments to ARM, but to purchase a company that had no experience in making CPU designs for smartphones and tablets was met with severe disapproval from Qualcomm’s board.

In the end, Qualcomm prevailed, but ARM is confident that the San Diego firm breached its licensing agreements, which is why it is definitely not going down without a fight. Court Judge Maryellen Noreika, who presided over the previous trial, advised that Qualcomm and ARM should settle their differences, but that scenario does not seem likely to materialize.

News Source: CRN