Comment by gpm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gpm | Hacker News Reader

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I encourage people to read the court-filings in any case if they're interested in the case.

But I'd also caution people new to this that lawyers are extremely good at making their case seem obviously right even when it isn't. If you're not nodding along going "that seems right" when you read the argument in a complaint the lawyers either have a really bad case, or they screwed up (or in rare cases they're making technical arguments that they think will seem right to the judge even if they don't seem right to lay people). It's better to wait for a chance to read the response from the other side before agreeing that the side you are reading is right.

In this case this lawsuit is from 2022, we have the responses already :)

Here's the docket that lists all the filings: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64938776/arm-ltd-v-qual...

And to extract the relevant items from that docket

Here's the response, at a minimum if you find ARMs complaint convincing you should read this: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.798...

Here's ARMs response to the response: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.798...

From a reasonably quick scan it looks like everything else in this suit is about discovery, scheduling, and whether it should be a jury a trial or just heard in front of a judge.

Scheduling note: A 5-day Jury Trial is set for 12/16/2024

Also interesting, seeing how the defendants are expanding the scope of the lawsuit to delay its progress and keep everyone busy:

- Qualcomm requesting the court to order ARM to provide ALL Architecture License Contracts with ANY party so Qualcomm can judge whether they are in violation of THEIR contract [1]

- Apple requesting the court to NOT share this information, as they are not relevant to this case and a customer of BOTH ARM and Qualcomm [2]

- Qualcomm trying to subpoena other licensees Apple, MediaTek, Google, Intel, etc. to court [3]

Meanwhile Snapdragon X Elite pre-production is ramping up, Qualcomm-customers finalize their Hardware-design, Microsoft putting all their weight onto that architecture. So by end of 2024 the products are already launched, products are shipped and Qualcomm has more allies to help them arguing against trade-restrictions...

Regardless what the final outcome is, the better strategy of Qualcomm is obviously to have no outcome in short-term.

[1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.798...

[2] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.798...

[3] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64938776/arm-ltd-v-qual...

It was also further delayed until December of 2024 because during Depositions Qualcomm learned that ARM didn't destroy nuvia designs like they were required to when they terminated the ALA.

So ARM is suing Qualcomm stating that the IP rights were non-assignable per the ALA, then Qualcomm finds out that ARM also did not hold up its side of the ALA termination agreement and is using Nuvia IP in their current gen designs.

Which is Qualcomm trying to have it both ways:

They don't agree since 2022 that Nuvia's related IP must be destroyed on termination of that license agreement, because they expect to own it due to a different license-agreement they have with ARM, but argue that ARM, the owner of the licensed architecture in question, should have destroyed all information, already KNOWING that Qualcomm intends to fight this contract.

So in turn, for ARM to defend itself in this case moving forward, Qualcomm's implication is that ARM should ask Qualcomm to provide the required information to them. But the whole case of ARM is that Qualcomm is NOT the rightful owner of this information.

-

It's also quite a visible move just to delay the proceedings.

Qualcomm states [1] that they learned this new evidence at (ARM's) Mr. Agrawal’s deposition on Dec.12 2023, contacted ARM "less than three weeks" after that to "meet and confer", but "ARM would not meaningfully engage until January 16".

Less than 3 weeks after Dec.12 2023 is NYE, between Dec.28 and Jan.03, ARM obviously responded (but did not "engage meaningfully" according to Qualcomm)

At the point Qualcomm considers ARM showing meaningful engagement, they met within 3 days, on a Friday. And on Jan.22, "the next business day", they contacted the court.

So ARM's legal team was not available to meet at NYE, didn't respond "meaningfully" immediately and an appropriate meeting-slot agreed by ARM and Qualcomm was only possible more than a month after that deposition...

[1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.798...

> They don't agree since 2022 that Nuvia's related IP must be destroyed on termination of that license agreement, because they expect to own it due to a different license-agreement they have with ARM, but argue that ARM, the owner of the licensed architecture in question, should have destroyed all information, already KNOWING that Qualcomm intends to fight this contract.

The way you phrased that does sound like trying to have it both ways, but wouldn't those designs be co-owned by Arm and Nuvia? If so it makes logical sense to say that Arm has to delete and Qualcomm doesn't, because Qualcomm has a claim to both sides, but Arm only has a claim to one side. That's not trying to have it both ways.

> So in turn, for ARM to defend itself in this case moving forward, Qualcomm's implication is that ARM should ask Qualcomm to provide the required information to them. But the whole case of ARM is that Qualcomm is NOT the rightful owner of this information.

That's just being clever.

Qualcomm's case goes beyond "we have a valid license agreement" as to the destruction of Nuvia's design. They're arguing that they do have a valid license agreement, but also that even if they didn't they would still be the lawful owners of the IP and would not be required to destroy it. They might not be able to use it, but they could hold onto it, because nothing in Nuvia's contract with ARM requires it be destroyed by Nuvia.

> 5. Even putting aside Qualcomm’s broad license rights, ARM’s reading of the termination obligations in the NUVIA Architecture License Agreement (“ALA”) is wrong. To the extent any destruction obligation exists, it explicitly applies only to ARM Confidential Information.1 But ARM again omits important facts: (1) under the NUVIA ALA, information in the public domain is not subject to confidentiality obligations, and (2) ARM publishes its instruction set without confidentiality restrictions. Anyone is free to go to the ARM website and download the 10,000+ page ARM Architecture Reference Manual.2 In this case, Qualcomm’s CPU cores are designed to be compatible with the publicly-available ARM Architecture version <redacted>.

> 36. Moreover, even though ARM demanded destruction of Confidential Information obtained under NUVIA’s ALA, NUVIA had implemented ARM Architecture <redacted>, which had been publicly available on ARM’s website for anyone to download since at least around January 2021—over a year before the destruction request. <Redacted sentence>. Therefore, ARM Architecture was not Confidential Information, not subject to any restrictions, and not subject to any destruction obligation. For the same reasons, the NUVIA core design did not contain ARM Confidential Information.

...

> It's also quite a visible move just to delay the proceedings.

I really don't agree. It looks like a bog standard discovery dispute.

(cites are paragraph numbers in https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.798...)

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