Arm will seek a new trial against Qualcomm

Arm plans to demand a retrial of part of its licensing lawsuit against Qualcomm after a mixed outcome in the blockbuster trial was delivered on Friday, the company says. A jury unanimously decided two out of three counts in Qualcomm's favor, but it deadlocked on the question of whether Nuvia, acquired by Qualcomm, had breached its own agreement with Arm.

"We are disappointed that the jury was unable to reach consensus across the claims," a statement by Arm reads. "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."

Yesterday, Qualcomm won its legal battle against Arm over allegations that it violated licensing agreements related to its Snapdragon X processors, which feature Oryon cores originally developed by Nuvia for data center processors under a different license agreement from Arm.

The IP developer was unhappy that Nuvia's technology would be used for client devices. Also, Arm claimed Nuvia's licensing terms did not transfer automatically with the acquisition by Qualcomm in 2021 and demanded the terms be renegotiated.

Qualcomm argued that its existing Arm instruction set architecture license covered technology developed by its subsidiaries, including Nuvia. Arm then demanded that Qualcomm discard Nuvia designs, something Qualcomm did not do. Instead, it launched the Snapdragon X processor line for client PCs.

Gerard Williams III, the lead developer of Oryon cores and a former Apple engineer, testified that the design contained less than 1% Arm technology. This supported Qualcomm's position that the Snapdragon X processors adhered to its licensing agreements, allowing continued development and sale of the chips.

While the jury cleared Qualcomm of wrongdoing, it could not agree on whether Nuvia breached its own licensing terms with Arm. If Arm takes this back to trial, it would only be able to relitigate this count as the other two have already been decided.