Judge Dismisses Final Arm-Qualcomm Claim, Preserves Qualcomm Victory

A U.S. federal judge on September 30, 2025 dismissed the final claim in a yearslong licensing dispute between British chip designer Arm Holdings and Qualcomm, upholding a December 2024 jury verdict that Qualcomm and its subsidiary Nuvia did not breach Arm’s Architecture License Agreement. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika leaves the initial jury victory intact and rejected Arm’s bids for a new trial or to overturn the prior verdict.

The dispute dates to Qualcomm’s 2021 acquisition of Nuvia, a startup that had been developing processors based on Arm technology. Arm sued Qualcomm and Nuvia alleging the acquisition and subsequent development of custom CPU cores violated licensing terms and that Qualcomm improperly continued to use Arm-based designs after Arm withdrew certain licenses. In December 2024, a Delaware jury found in Qualcomm’s favor on two counts and deadlocked on a third, producing a mistrial on that count. Tuesday’s decision resolved the remaining allegation in Qualcomm’s favor.

Arm said it would appeal. In a statement, Arm said it remained confident in its position and would immediately file an appeal seeking to overturn the judgment. Qualcomm...