Arm, Qualcomm Legal Battle Might Disrupt ‘AI PCs’

Max A. Cherney:

The British company, which is majority-owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group sued Qualcomm in 2022 for failing to negotiate a new license after it acquired a new company. The suit revolves around technology that Qualcomm, a designer of mobile chips, acquired from a business called Nuvia that was founded by Apple chip engineers and which it purchased in 2021 for $1.4 billion.

Arm builds the intellectual property and designs that it sells to companies such as Apple and Qualcomm, which they use to make chips. Nuvia had plans to design server chips based on Arm licenses, but after the acquisition closed, Qualcomm reassigned its remaining team to develop a laptop processor, which is now being used in Microsoft’s latest AI PC, called Copilot+.

Arm said the current design planned for Microsoft’s Copilot+ laptops is a direct technical descendant of Nuvia’s chip. Arm said it had cancelled the license for these chips.

My initial reaction when I see reports of legal disputes like this is “Eh, they’ll settle.” But look at the Apple-Masimo dispute over blood oxygen sensors — that’s still dragging on as we head into summer.

Also: Is there any company that Qualcomm hasn’t gotten into a knock-down, drag-out legal battle with over licensing or patent issues? It’s like, of course Qualcomm is trying to stiff Arm on licensing fees. That’s how Qualcomm rolls.

★ Wednesday, 12 June 2024