Chipmaker Arm Ltd. today filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm Inc. alleging breach of contract and trademark infringement concerning designs from Nuvia, the chip startup Qualcomm acquired for $1.4 billion in January 2021.

In the lawsuit, Arm claims that Qualcomm attempted to transfer Nuvia licenses without consent and as such, it terminated Nuvia’s licenses in March. Arm then alleges Qualcomm has continued development under the licenses, despite the licenses being terminated.

“Arm was left with no choice other than to bring this claim against Qualcomm and Nuvia to protect our IP, our business, and to ensure customers are able to access valid Arm-based products,” Arm said in a statement. “As an intellectual property company, it is incumbent upon us to protect our rights and the rights of our ecosystem.”

Arm granted Nuvia a Technology License Agreement and Architecture License Agreement in 2019, allowing the company to modify and design custom cores based on Arm’s select architecture or architectures. Tom’s Hardware reported that the licenses were granted based on specific terms and could not be transferred without consent.

Despite requiring consent, it’s alleged that Qualcomm transferred the license to a newly formed entity after it purchased Nuvia. The companies are said to have attempted to negotiate terms for the transfer but could not agree, leading to the termination of the license in March.

Qualcomm and Nuvia are then alleged to have continued to develop processors based on Arm’s Phoenix core and continue to use Arm’s trademark when referring to Nuvia processors.

Arm’s lawsuit seeks the destruction of certain Nuvia designs, an injunction against trademark infringement and fair compensation for the trademark infringement. “We will work vigorously to protect what is rightfully ours and we are confident that the courts will agree with us,” Arm added.

In response to the lawsuit, Qualcomm said in a statement that “Arm’s lawsuit marks an unfortunate departure from its longstanding, successful relationship with Qualcomm.”

“Arm has no right, contractual or otherwise, to attempt to interfere with Qualcomm’s or Nuvia’s innovations,” the statement added. “Arm’s complaint ignores the fact that Qualcomm has broad, well-established license rights covering its custom-designed CPU’s and we are confident those rights will be affirmed.”

Qualcomm and Arm have had previous issues between them, including Qualcomm telling regulators that it was concerned about Nvidia Corp.’s then-proposed $40 billion acquisition of Arm in February 2021. The deal, which a year later had ballooned to $66 billion, was called off in February this year on regulatory concerns, the same concerns raised by Qualcomm.

If Arm is successful in its legal action, the ban on using Arm architecture may also delay or scupper plans by Qualcomm to return to the server chip market. It was noted on Aug. 18 that Qualcomm did not detail if it was using Nuvia’s technology in the new chips, but Qualcomm could be. Qualcomm already uses Arm blueprints as the basis for its flagship Snapdragon mobile chips.

Image: Arm