U.S. Court Dismisses Arm Allegation of Qualcomm Unit Violating License Agreement

By Sherry Qin

A U.S. court said Qualcomm's central processors are properly licensed under an agreement with Arm Holdings and rejected Arm's remaining claims.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware dismissed Arm's claim that Nuvia, a startup that was acquired by Qualcomm in 2021, violated its license agreement with Arm, Qualcomm said in a statement Tuesday.

In December, a Delaware jury ruled that Qualcomm had a valid license to use Arm's basic chip architecture for central processors it developed with the acquisition of Nuvia.

When Qualcomm bought Nuvia for $1.4 billion, the smaller company was developing central processing chips for data centers based on Arm's architecture. Qualcomm abandoned that path after the acquisition, and adapted the chip designs Nuvia developed for power-sipping laptops that started to hit the market in 2024.

The ruling allowed Qualcomm to continue selling those chips, which are at the heart of a range of devices including Microsoft Surface laptops, without paying additional licensing fees.

Arm didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Qualcomm's separate lawsuit against Arm alleging breach of contract and a pattern of conduct in seeking to hinder innovation is ongoing and expected to go to trial in March 2026, Qualcomm said.

Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 30, 2025 22:46 ET (02:46 GMT)