Last night, the Arm v. Qualcomm story broke. I rushed out a Arm Sues Qualcomm over Nuvia IP Misappropriation and Trademark Infringement piece just as I was departing for early birthday celebrations. This morning, feeling older, I was able to record a video stepping through what Arm is saying, including using a few diagrams to help a bit better than the wall of text yesterday.
Arm v. Qualcomm the Video
The idea with this video is to walk through some of the most important parts of the complaint and try to get at the main issue that Arm is alleging. This is more of a podcast-style video since we do not have lots of hardware B-roll or anything like that. Put this on in the background and then feel free to chat about it (or share it) at this weekend’s Labor Day BBQ’s if you are in the US.
As always, we suggest opening the video in its own tab, browser, or app for a better viewing experience. The embedded viewer works, but it is not as good and the YouTube site and apps have listen-only modes as an example.
The Arm v. Qualcomm suit is a huge deal in the technology industry that will have far-reaching implications beyond just the Nuvia IP. It felt like a video topic even though it is pushing the really cool Intel QuickAssist video until next week.
Final Words
For those that saw yesterday, this suit is very interesting to me because it involves both products that we have covered over the years, but also a lot of my background. What I do want to mention, and be clear on, is that while I do have a JD, I do not practice so this is not legal advice. I just wanted to do my best to explain what is going on in Arm’s complaint to our STH audience. Also, to be fair, Qualcomm has yet to respond. Complaints are almost always one-sided affairs as one would expect.
Make no mistake, this lawsuit will have huge implications for the data center Arm market, and the broader Arm processor market in general. This was not a small lawsuit to be taken lightly. This is the result of a breakdown at the highest levels of Qualcomm and Arm and the outcome of the lawsuit will have huge impacts on the industry.
Great coverage of a very nuanced topic!
Hmmm to make it exceedingly obvious, should all ARM licenses have “For personal consumption only. Not for resale.” in bold 20 pt type as the first paragraph?
Qualcomm legal really blew it. This is a straight up clause in the ARM IP agreement. They made a judgement that they could get Nuvia and bring its IP with them regardless due to a legal interpretation, one that ARM doesn’t agree with nor allow.
Qualcomm’s attempt to get into the general computing market is going fail once again. They tried once with Centriq, and built up a cash wad to support it, that is until Broadcom saw the cash on the books and decided to make a hostile bid for Qualcomm.
Qualcomm is fiercely independent and defends its IP louder than anyone, so the fact they misinterpreted some IP legal terms is frankly kind of surprising as they have one of the best legal IP teams in the world. So this whole squabble rings more like a bully pushing back on ARM.
ARM has a legit beef. Just like they have a legit beef with the guy stealing ARM China. Everyone wants the benefits ARM provides, but no one likes the conditions by which they get those benefits. So they keep pushing back thinking they can break away on their own terms.
Qualcomm will probably get what they want, but its going to cost them dearly, not only in legal bills, but in an IP settlement with ARM in several hundreds of millions of dollars.