Qualcomm and Arm begin a second trial over chip-license obligations

The story

Qualcomm and Arm are returning to federal court in Delaware for a five-day trial over what each company owes the other inside one of the semiconductor industry’s most consequential licensing relationships. The jury trial beginning October 5 is not a patent-infringement case and does not reopen the verdict from their first courtroom battle. It concerns Qualcomm’s allegations that Arm breached architecture and technology license agreements by withholding chip-testing tools, mishandling confidential information and failing to offer commercially reasonable terms. Arm denies the claims.

Qualcomm’s regulatory filing says it brought the separate lawsuit in April 2024 after Arm allegedly failed to provide deliverables required by Qualcomm’s Architecture License Agreement, or ALA. The chipmaker later added claims tied to Arm’s October 2024 notice threatening to terminate that license and to Arm’s public disclosure of the threat. In June 2025, Qualcomm expanded the complaint again, alleging that Arm had not made commercially reasonable offers under a Technology License Agreement. The case is Qualcomm Inc. v. Arm Holdings plc, No. 1:24-cv-00490.

Reuters reports that Qualcomm will argue that Arm’s disclosure of the termination threat damaged discussions about a potential chip deal with Meta Platforms. Qualcomm also seeks to invoke a contract provision that it says would let it stop paying Arm royalties for as long as five years. Those payments could be worth billions of dollars, but that figure describes potential exposure rather than an award. U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika is considering whether the disputed remedy should be removed from the case, which could sharply narrow any damages.

Arm contests both liability and causation. According to Reuters, the company says it supplied what the contracts required and characterizes the alleged harm to Qualcomm’s business opportunities as speculative. Arm also argues that Qualcomm should not recover for disclosure of the termination letter because Qualcomm allegedly shared non-public information about antitrust investigations into Arm. These are competing allegations that the jury has not resolved.

A related bench trial will put a different question directly before Judge Noreika: whether Arm negotiated in good faith over access to the next version of its chip technology. Qualcomm’s current agreement runs through 2033, Reuters reported. The dispute therefore reaches beyond compensation for past conduct. It may influence the conditions under which Qualcomm can design future processors using Arm’s architecture and the leverage each company carries into the next licensing cycle.

The case must be separated from Arm’s 2022 lawsuit over Qualcomm’s acquisition of CPU startup Nuvia. In that earlier action, Arm argued that Nuvia’s license could not be transferred and that Qualcomm should stop using technology developed under it. A Delaware jury found in December 2024 that Qualcomm did not breach Nuvia’s architecture license and that Qualcomm CPUs incorporating the acquired designs were covered by Qualcomm’s own agreement. The court entered final judgment for Qualcomm and Nuvia in September 2025; Arm appealed.

That earlier victory did not settle the current claims. Qualcomm’s SEC filing treats the April 2024 action as a distinct case involving Arm’s performance under Qualcomm’s own agreements. Arm’s annual filing similarly acknowledges the allegations about delivery obligations while disputing Qualcomm’s broader position. The new trial therefore asks whether the licensor fulfilled operational promises after the parties’ relationship had already deteriorated.

The technical context raises the stakes. Arm historically supplied architecture, processor designs and associated tools to customers that built their own chips. Qualcomm used Nuvia’s engineering to develop custom Oryon CPU cores for Snapdragon processors and has expanded from phones and PCs toward data-center systems. Arm, meanwhile, disclosed in its annual report that it is moving into production silicon with its Arm AGI CPU. The companies remain commercially connected even as parts of their product strategies increasingly overlap.

INNOVOX analysis: semiconductor intellectual property is not delivered by a license document alone. Successful implementation can depend on test suites, verification tools, technical support, confidentiality and timely access to future specifications. This trial could clarify how courts value those non-patent obligations when a license is central to a product road map. The proposed five-year royalty suspension is especially important because it would turn a performance dispute into a major shift in bargaining power.

What to watch is the difference between accusation and proof. Jurors will need to assess what the contracts actually required, whether Arm withheld covered deliverables, whether disclosure of the termination notice caused measurable loss and what remedy survives the judge’s legal review. The bench decision on future-license negotiations and Arm’s separate appeal from the Nuvia judgment will continue after this trial. Until verdicts and rulings arrive, neither side can accurately claim victory in this second dispute.

INNOVOX analysis

The trial tests whether a semiconductor IP license delivers more than legal permission to implement an architecture. Tools, verification support, confidentiality and good-faith negotiations can be as commercially important as the rights grant itself. A ruling on the disputed royalty remedy could also reshape the bargaining power built into long-duration technology licenses.

What to watch

Watch the court’s treatment of the clause Qualcomm says permits up to five years without royalties, the evidence linking Arm’s termination notice to Qualcomm’s talks with Meta, and the parallel bench ruling on good-faith negotiations for future Arm technology. Arm’s appeal in the earlier Nuvia case remains a separate risk.