Qualcomm earned another victory in its legal battle with Arm Holdings. The two tech giants have been in a dispute surrounding licensing agreements that could have theoretically ended in the destruction of all Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon chips inside. Qualcomm won two important parts of the case last December. This week, Qualcomm shared that Arm has withdrawn its threat to terminate its licensing agreement with Qualcomm.
During an earnings call this week, Qualcomm shared the following update:
"The jury’s verdict vindicated Qualcomm’s CPU innovations and affirmed that Qualcomm’s contract with ARM provides a license for Qualcomm’s products containing our proprietary Oryon CPUs in industries such as smartphones, automotive, next generation PCs, IoT, and datacenter. In addition, Arm recently notified us that it was withdrawing its October 22, 2024 notice of breach and indicated that it has no current plan to terminate the Qualcomm Architecture License Agreement."
Qualcomm and Arm found themselves in a game of legal chicken late last year. Arm threatened to cancel its licensing agreement with Qualcomm, which would have had major implications for both companies as well as several industries. Qualcomm chips with Arm licenses are used in millions of devices around the world, including many popular smartphones and PCs. Those chips are also used in datacenters, IoT, and manufacturing.
The case between Arm and Qualcomm centered around the latter's Snapdragon X processors. Those chips were built on tech licensed from Arm, but Arm claimed Qualcomm did so without proper licensing. Qualcomm countered, claiming that licensing agreements made by Nuvia, which was purchased by Qualcomm in 2021, still applied. Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip is also built with Oryon tech that stemmed from the Nuvia acquisition, so the end of a licensing agreement between Arm and Qualcomm could have affected smartphones as well.
In December, a jury determined that Qualcomm created its Snapdragon X chips with licensing from Arm. But December's ruling only covered two out of three claims from Arm, which left the door open for an extended legal battle. While there may be more legal proceedings in the future involving Arm and Qualcomm, this week's news should be considered a win for the latter. It also means consumers can assume Snapdragon powered PCs will remain on store shelves.
