“Arm uses CPU power so that manufacturers also purchase other Arm soc parts”

Qualcomm has now filed its own suit following a recent licensing lawsuit from Arm. According to Qualcomm, Arm spreads deliberately false information and uses its licenses for CPUs so that manufacturers also choose Arm designs for other SOC components such as GPUs.

In an indictment of more than 80 pages, Qualcomm accuses Arm that the British company has approached manufacturers of finished products with all kinds of false claims and information with the aim of stealing revenue. For example, Qualcomm states that Arm has falsely told one or more Qualcomm OEMs that they must purchase a new direct license from Arm and that they will otherwise no longer receive chips based on Arm designs from 2025.

So Arm would like to get rid of licensing with chip design companies like Qualcomm and instead negotiate direct licensing deals with the makers of the electronics products that contain the socs. Qualcomm argues that Arm is trying to get manufacturers to sign by falsely suggesting that Qualcomm will not be able to provide them with chips with Arm parts from 2025, because the necessary licensing agreement between Qualcomm and Arm will not be renewed in 2024 and beyond.

The American Qualcomm goes further and states that Arm is not only making incorrect claims, but also exerts extra pressure by pointing out other parts of SOCs. Arm is said to have told manufacturers that Qualcomm and other chip makers are no longer able to supply other components such as GPUs and ISPs for SOCs. That’s because Arm would tie the licenses for such components to the licenses for the Arm designs for CPU cores. Qualcomm seems to suggest that this could be a case of tying and that Arm is also trying to gain a foothold with Arm’s intellectual property in parts other than CPUs. For example, it could mean that Samsung smartphone socs can no longer be made with an AMD GPU, because Arm also has designs for the GPU part.

Qualcomm argues that this is a deliberate attempt to damage its relationship with customers so that Arm can make lucrative deals with those customers. According to the American company, it still has licenses for ‘several years after 2025’.

This feud between the two companies started at least in early September. Then Arm sued Qualcomm for an alleged license infringement over the acquisition of chip company Nuvia. It’s all about the Arm licenses that Nuvia holds. That company worked on chip designs based on those licenses. Arm argues that these could not be transferred to Qualcomm without permission. As a result, Nuvia’s licenses were revoked earlier this year after negotiations on the transfer failed, Arm claims. The company wants Qualcomm to be ordered by the court to destroy “certain designs” of Nuvia. Arm also asked for a ‘trade mark infringement ban’ and damages.