Large companies like Apple design their own computing cores based on Arm’s architecture, but Arm also offers its own off-the-shelf core designs (File) | Photo Credit: Reuters
Lawyers for Arm and Qualcomm grilled a former Apple executive on Tuesday over a key issue for the future of the chip industry: who owns the intellectual property built on Arm’s computing architecture.
At issue this week in a federal court in Delaware is the fate of Qualcomm’s expansion into the laptop business. Partners like Microsoft are trying to regain the ground that Windows computers lost to Apple as the iPhone maker introduced its own customizations. Chips.
Arm’s flagship product is a computing architecture that competes with Intel’s and is widely used in smartphones and increasingly used in laptops and data centers. Until relatively recently, most smartphone apps didn’t work on most laptops because of competing computing architectures.
While large companies like Apple design their own computing cores based on Arm’s architecture, Arm also offers its own off-the-shelf core designs used by smaller companies such as MediaTek. Where ownership of core designs based on Arm’s architecture begins and ends is at the heart of the dispute between Arm and Qualcomm.
The companies disagree over whether Nuvia, which Qualcomm acquired for $1.4 billion in 2021, has the right to transfer its computing core designs to Qualcomm after the sale.
On Tuesday in U.S. federal court in Delaware, lawyers for both sides asked former Apple engineer Gerald Williams, who founded Nuvia in 2019, whether Nuvia’s core is ultimately a derivative of Arm’s technology or We investigated whether Arm’s technology plays only a minor role in Nuvia’s work.
Arm’s lawyers pressed Williams to acknowledge that the license agreement at the center of the dispute included Arm’s technology and “derivatives” and “modifications” made from it.
Williams reiterated that he does not believe the deal means that all of Nubia’s works are derivatives or modifications of Arm’s technology, although he acknowledged that the language on the page appears to say so. Ta.
Arm lawyer Dararyn Dury pressed Williams to agree: “You may not say that, but it says so in the contract.”
Mr. Williams responded, “I wouldn’t say that, but I’m not a legal expert.”
Mr. Durie quickly said he was done with questioning.
The exchange with Dury followed cross-examination by Qualcomm’s lawyers, who directed Williams to explain how little Arm technology is used in Qualcomm chips found in phones, laptops and cars.
Williams said his development team started with the Arm architecture and was asked to estimate how much Arm technology would be included in Nuvia’s final design. “One percent or less,” Williams said.
Analysts told Reuters that Qualcomm pays Arm about $300 million a year, and evidence presented in court Monday showed that Qualcomm’s acquisition of Nubia would generate an additional $50 million a year in revenue. This indicates that Arm executives believe that they are missing out on the issue.
A jury verdict in the trial could come as early as this week, and Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon may also take the stand.
issued – December 18, 2024 9:13 AM IST
