Arm lawsuit ends in mistrial with Qualcomm securing key win

By Tom Hals

(Reuters) -Arm Holdings’ lawsuit in opposition to Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) led to a mistrial on Friday, with a jury delivering a blended verdict that discovered for Qualcomm on an important challenge, saying Qualcomm had correctly licensed its central processor chips.

Arm’s shares have been down 1.8% in prolonged buying and selling after the information, and Qualcomm’s shares have been up 1.8%.

The end result means the case could possibly be tried once more sooner or later. Decide Maryellen Noreika, who presided over the case in U.S. federal courtroom in Delaware, inspired Arm and Qualcomm to mediate their dispute.

“I do not suppose both aspect had a transparent victory or would have had a transparent victory if this case is tried once more,” Noreika instructed the events.

After greater than 9 hours of deliberations over two days, the eight-person jury in U.S. federal courtroom couldn’t attain a unanimous verdict on the query of whether or not Nuvia, a startup that Qualcomm bought for $1.4 billion in 2021, breached the phrases of its license with Arm.

However the jury discovered that Qualcomm didn’t breach Nuvia’s license with Arm.

The jury additionally discovered that Qualcomm’s chips created utilizing Nuvia know-how, which have been central to Qualcomm’s push into the private pc market, are correctly licensed below its personal settlement with Arm, clearing the best way for Qualcomm to proceed promoting them.

“The jury has vindicated Qualcomm’s proper to innovate and affirmed that every one the Qualcomm merchandise at challenge within the case are protected by Qualcomm’s contract with Arm,” Qualcomm stated in an announcement.

Arm didn’t instantly return Reuters requests for remark.

“My largest fear was what occurs to the long run roadmap in the event that they not have entry to Nuvia (computing) cores,” Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon stated. “At this level, that danger is loads nearer to being off the desk.”