Arm And Qualcomm Are At It Again! Arm Just Issued A 60 Day Termination Notice

This Time Arm Considers Qualcomm’s Purchase Of Nuvia in 2021 To Be Underhanded

It seems that this has taken Arm a while to decide to litigate, but they are calling Qualcomm on their $1.4 billion acquisition of Nuvia in 2021.  Nuvia also designed custom Arm chips, and Arm feels that Qualcomm their licensing agreement by not renegotiating a contract after the purchase.   Qualcomm insists that since they already have an Arm license that any company they happen to acquire would fall under that existing contract.  This means Arm feels Qualcomm must destroy any designs Nuvia created before the acquisition, as those chips were not designed under Qualcomm’s current license.

Arm has now issued a 60 day notice to Qualcomm informing them they will lose their current overarching Arm license and would no longer be legally allowed to use their current Arm chips, let alone design new ones.  If you’ve followed the history of the litigious battles between these two companies, it will come as no surprise that Qualcomm has filed a countersuit against Arm. 

If you are questioning the delay in the start of this legal battle, it is simply the latest fallout from the original dispute which was filed years ago.  Neither Arm nor Qualcomm have a history of deescalation when they get into a pitched battle.   At the worst, Qualcomm will still be able to manufacture their existing Snapdragon and other chips after the 60 days, but it will require separate agreements for several licenses and will slow manufacturing as well as increasing costs.

We expect to hear more about this in the coming days, with more legal actions launched from both sides.