ARM has sued Qualcomm and Nuvia in a Delaware court for not respect the terms of the license agreement they had with ARM, as well as for trademark infringement. The company wants the Phoenix chip designs destroyed and fair compensation for the use of its brand.
It all stems from a deal that saw Nuvia awarded Technology License Agreements (TLAs) and Architecture License Agreements (ALA) in the fall of 2019. Through these deals, Nuvia was able to modify the technology of ARM cores as sold. It could also design custom chips based on ARM architectures. But these licenses were granted under certain conditions, and could not be transferred to Qualcomm without consent.
Additionally, ARM’s architecture and technology license agreements with Qualcomm do not cover products with ARM-based technologies developed by third parties under separate licenses, such as those for the Phoenix chips described by the company in mid-2020. Qualcomm transferred Nuvia licenses to a new entity created after Nuvia purchase last March. She did it without ARM consentsomething that the British says is a common restriction in ARM agreement licenses.
Since the companies have not reached an agreement, ARM terminated Nuvia’s licenses in March. But Nuvia and Qualcomm continued to develop processors based on the Phoenix chip, which violates license agreements. Also, since both companies continued to use the brand name when talking about upcoming Nuvia processors, they have also used it illegally.
As stated by the company, «Since Qualcomm attempted to transfer the Nuvia licenses without consent, which is a common limitation in ARM’s license agreements, the Nuvia licenses were terminated in March 2022. Before and after that date, ARM made various efforts, from good faith, to find a solution. But Qualcomm has broken the terms of ARM’s license agreement by continuing to develop using the terminated licenses. It has had no choice but to sue Qualcomm and Nvidia to protect its intellectual property and business and ensure customers can access valid ARM-based products.«.
Nuvia’s Phoenix design has never been released, but the company has been sold to Qualcomm, which wants to use its designs in its PC processors. At Qualcomm, SoCs based on its designs have been delayed several times, with the first chip samples featuring it now expected in late 2023 or early 2024. They have also announced that the company’s designs will likely be used in manufacture of processors for data centers.
