ARM sues Qualcomm, alleging its subsidiary breached a licensing settlement | Engadget

has filed a lawsuit towards and subsidiary Nuvia over alleged trademark infringement and a breach of some license agreements. It desires sure Nuvia CPU designs to be destroyed, in addition to “fair compensation.”

Qualcomm to leverage the latter’s customized processor cores for its chips. According to (which was obtained by ), Nuvia used licensed ARM tech to construct the cores. ARM claims Qualcomm didn’t acquire the required permission to switch and use the licenses it granted to Nuvia.

ARM asserts that Qualcomm’s acquisition of the corporate resulted in Nuvia breaching its licenses. As such, ARM terminated these licenses earlier this 12 months. It added that, because of this, Qualcomm and Nuvia are obliged to cease utilizing and destroy any ARM-based know-how that was developed beneath the licenses. Additionally, ARM argues that Qualcomm plans to proceed utilizing its logos to market and promote merchandise containing Nuvia cores with out having permission to take action. 

“Because Qualcomm attempted to transfer Nuvia licenses without ARM’s consent, which is a standard restriction under ARM’s license agreements, Nuvia’s licenses terminated in March 2022,” ARM stated in an announcement. “Before and after that date, ARM made a number of good religion efforts to hunt a decision. In distinction, Qualcomm has breached the phrases of the ARM license settlement by persevering with improvement beneath the terminated licenses. ARM was left with no alternative aside from to carry this declare towards Qualcomm and Nuvia to guard our IP, our enterprise, and to make sure prospects are capable of entry legitimate ARM-based merchandise.”

This is a big improvement as Qualcomm is certainly one of its key prospects. Qualcomm constructed its identify on ARM-based processors, in any case. And including to the confusion, Qualcomm nonetheless has its personal license with ARM, beneath which it could actually construct customized cores with the latter’s structure. It’s not clear what overlap, if any, may exist between the licensing agreements made to Qualcomm and Nuvia.

“ARM’s lawsuit marks an unfortunate departure from its longstanding, successful relationship with Qualcomm. ARM has no right, contractual or otherwise, to attempt to interfere with Qualcomm’s or Nuvia’s innovations,” Qualcomm advised The Register in an announcement. “ARM’s complaint ignores the fact that Qualcomm has broad, well-established license rights covering its custom-designed CPUs, and we are confident those rights will be affirmed.”