Qualcomm wins architecture breach verdict against Arm but gets just $2

Following its win against Arm in its licensing dispute around CPU cores developed by Nuvia, Qualcomm sued Arm in the U.S. early this year, accusing its partner of breaching the terms of their contract and causing damages to the company. This week a federal jury in Delaware has ruled that Arm indeed breached its contractual obligations with Qualcomm and intentionally interfered with the chipmaker's business relationship with Meta. However, the jury awarded Qualcomm only $2 in nominal damages and rejected several other claims against Arm. As a result, both companies declared victory in the latest round of their legal dispute, which could still have massive financial consequences.

The verdict followed a five-day trial in Wilmington, Delaware, during which Qualcomm accused Arm of violating the Architecture License Agreement (ALA), withholding software patches and processor verification tools, and refusing to offer commercially reasonable licensing terms. …