The Qualcomm-Arm legal battle has seen some twists and turns over the last 24 hours. First, Qualcomm announced a complete victory over Arm in its litigation challenging Qualcomm’s licensing agreements. Arm then issued a statement stating it would immediately file an appeal to overturn the judgment. And then Arm’s share price rose on the back of a report suggesting Qualcomm’s latest chips, announced last week, are based on Armv9 architecture.
It would have appeared the legal case was finally about to be settled, but Arm’s likely challenge, as well as Qualcomm’s separate lawsuit against Arm, which is expected to go to trial in March 2026, means there’s still a lot to happen before the two parties can move on.
As a recap, in the December 2024 trial held in a Delaware court (see Arm vs. Qualcomm: The Legal Tussle Continues, from earlier this year), the jury decided in favor of Qualcomm in two of the three challenges, which cleared the company of breach of the Nuvia Architecture License Agreement (ALA) and allowed the company to sell products with Nuvia technology through its own ALA. But the jury was deadlocked on the third question: “Did Nuvia breach its ALA with Arm?”
That third challenge is what was decided in this week’s ruling, with Qualcomm issuing a statement on Tuesday (30th September 2025) stating its definitive victory in the case:
“A U.S. District Court judge today granted Qualcomm Incorporated a complete victory in litigation brought by Arm Ltd., rejecting Arm’s attempts to stifle innovation and confirming that neither Qualcomm nor its subsidiary Nuvia breached Nuvia’s license agreements with Arm.”
It added:
“The decision in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware dismissed the lone remaining claim in Arm’s lawsuit filed against Qualcomm and Nuvia, in which Arm alleged breach of the architecture license agreement (ALA) between Nuvia and Arm. The Court ruled today in favor of Nuvia. The ruling follows Qualcomm’s victory over Arm during the December 2024 trial in which a jury decided unanimously that Qualcomm did not breach the Nuvia ALA and that Qualcomm’s innovative CPU cores incorporating technology obtained in the Nuvia acquisition were properly licensed under Qualcomm’s own ALA. The Court’s ruling today upholds those jury verdicts and rejects Arm’s attempts to overturn them. The Court also rejected Arm’s request for a new trial.”
For Qualcomm, the company’s General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Ann Chaplin, stated, “With the Court’s decision today, Qualcomm and its subsidiary Nuvia have achieved a full victory. This decision follows Qualcomm’s December 2024 jury trial win and is a full and final judgment in Qualcomm’s favor. Our right to innovate prevailed in this case and we hope Arm will return to fair and competitive practices in dealing with the Arm ecosystem.”
Arm is still steadfast in its position
Arm immediately issued a statement to several media outlets stating that it would challenge this, saying, “Arm remains confident in its position in its ongoing dispute with Qualcomm and will immediately file an appeal seeking to overturn the judgment.”
The question we all might ask is, is this in Arm’s interests? Especially since a separate report today that Qualcomm’s shift to Armv9 for its latest chips (according to Reuters) will in any case boost Arm’s revenue. The news agency stated, “Qualcomm declined to comment on what technology it used for its newest chips but said in a statement that ‘we chose the instructions that make sense for our customers. That’s the beauty of having our own CPU design team – we can pick and choose the instructions that add value.” Arm’s shares have been rising today on the back of this, according to Reuters.
In a post on social media, Neil Shah, co-founder & vice president of research for Counterpoint Research, suggested Arm should be looking to salvage what is left of its partnership with Qualcomm rather than continuing its fight.
Shah commented, “What this will do is further alienate and give Qualcomm a strong reason to scale the Oryon CPU across more products from smartphones, PCs, automotive, to datacenters and robotics, and maybe adopt RISC-V across other low power products.” He added, “Hundreds of millions of dollars are on the verge of vanishing away faster than expected. Arm should have pitched and focused on the custom chip program to work closely with Qualcomm to help them differentiate.”
But are the two sides likely to come together, given the acrimony over the case? Jim McGregor, founder and principal analyst at Tirias Research, told EE Times, “After the court decisions last year and recently, Qualcomm appears to have the upper hand. With all the bad blood, I’m not sure that there is an opportunity for the two sides to come together, but I would never rule it out. In the long term, however, the writing is on the wall. Arm is going to compete with Qualcomm and other partners/customers; and will likely be pushing for higher license fees and royalty rates. And on the other side the industry is investing in RISC-V as an alternative.”
However, Charles Sturman, chief executive officer of TechWorks, the U.K.’s trade association for semiconductors and deep tech, said to EE Times, “As Arm pushes further into high- performance compute and AI, Qualcomm will remain an important chip partner, but equally, as the global leader in processor architecture, Arm needs to differentiate and monetize its IP roadmap. This disagreement is important to both the U.K. and the global industry since Arm is a key part of the U.K. ecosystem, and both parties need to come to an agreement.”
Qualcomm’s latest statement also refers to the ongoing suit it has against Arm, stating:
“Qualcomm’s separate lawsuit against Arm for breach of contract, improper interference with customer relationships, and for Arm’s pattern of conduct seeking to hinder innovation and better position Arm’s own products over its long-standing partners’ is ongoing. We look forward to an expected trial in March 2026.”
Is the IP licensing model broken?
One thing I have not heard throughout the time that this litigation has gone on is whether the IP licensing business model needs to evolve. I have heard some in the industry talking about the ‘IP licensing business model being broken’. However, companies like Arm need to have ways of returning a profit on their massive investments in R&D and ecosystems, but what customers often want to see is both clarity and flexibility in the terms of use of a license.
The Qualcomm–Arm case illustrates that ambiguous contracts and transfers can cause ‘existential’ disputes. It also begs the question, what alternatives would be attractive and economical? Maybe the RISC-V evolution has shown that it is possible to have an open architecture and add value in the ecosystem to make a profit. But apart from a handful of companies, we have not yet seen the scale that Arm has achieved in terms of market penetration, but as analysts seem to continually suggest, that time will come at some point in the future.
Until then, what’s clear from today’s news is that both Qualcomm and Arm are resolute in their positions. But what’s also clear is that both companies still need each other, as the industry’s growth is based on collaboration between players in the ecosystem. One is dependent on the other. So one would hope that they decide to come to terms with each other’s positions and find an amicable way forward.
From EETimes