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Judge Noreika's pending ruling decides whether Qualcomm can seek five royalty-free years from Arm
Qualcomm asked a Delaware jury to let it stop paying Arm royalties for up to five years, a remedy Reuters reports could be worth billions of dollars. Judge Maryellen Noreika may still strike that term, which would leave Qualcomm only a smaller damages claim.
The Investor · Invest desk
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What happened
- Qualcomm accuses Arm of withholding chip testing tools owed under contract and of leaking a 2024 termination threat in a way that hurt its chip-deal talks with Meta Platforms.
- Arm denies breaching the contract and says any claimed harm to Qualcomm's chip deals is too speculative to stand.
- Arm argues Qualcomm cannot recover damages for the leak because Qualcomm itself gave reporters non-public details of antitrust probes into Arm.
- In the Nuvia dispute Arm brought in 2022, a jury sided with Qualcomm in December 2024 and a court upheld the verdict in September 2025, and Arm has appealed to the Third Circuit.
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Why it matters
- constraint Noreika's ruling caps what the jury can award. Striking the royalty term removes the billions-scale remedy before anyone rules on breach.
- exposure If the term survives and Qualcomm wins, Arm could go without royalties from one of its largest customers for about 70% of the licence's remaining life.
- cost If Arm's argument about Qualcomm's own leaks succeeds, Qualcomm loses its leak damages. If the royalty term is also struck, the testing-tools claim is left to carry the jury case.
Qualcomm's licence with Arm runs through 2033 [8]. Qualcomm last amended its complaint in March 2026 [9], so about seven years of the agreement are left. A five-year stop on royalties would cover about 70% of them [16]. Qualcomm is one of Arm's largest customers [14], and Reuters puts the value of the remedy at potentially billions of dollars [1].
Noreika controls that figure before the jury ever gets to it. If she strikes the term before the Delaware jury deliberates [2][6], Qualcomm is left seeking damages for withheld testing tools and a damaged negotiation with Meta [3]. Arm is attacking the Meta claim from two directions. It says the harm is speculative, and it says Qualcomm gave up its leak damages by talking to reporters itself [4][5]. If she leaves the term in, a finding of breach puts years of royalty cash from a top customer in front of the jury [1][14]. The bench trial running in parallel is a third route. There Noreika alone decides whether Arm bargained in good faith over the next generation of its chip architecture [7].
I think the bench trial matters more for what Arm can charge Qualcomm [7]. The jury is hearing claims about things that have already happened. Qualcomm's price for Arm's next architecture depends on the good-faith question, and only the judge decides that one. The reports do not say how much Qualcomm pays Arm each year, and they do not link either proceeding to the rates Arm charges its other licensees [1]. I would be wrong if the jury returned a large award on the Meta claim after the royalty term had been struck [2][3]. That would put serious money back with the jury.
In its own accounts, Qualcomm does not expect to lose. It has recorded no accrual for potential losses and does not consider a loss probable [10]. It has also widened the claims three times in the 23 months since its April 2024 complaint [17]. The complaint asks for an order compelling Arm to meet its contractual obligations, plus damages and other relief [15].
The two companies now compete as well as trade. Arm, owned by SoftBank, releases chips of its own and competes with licensees including Qualcomm [12]. Qualcomm, a major maker of chips for Android phones, has expanded into data center chips [13].
What to watch
- Noreika's ruling on whether the five-year royalty term goes to the jury at all.
- Her bench-trial finding on whether Arm bargained in good faith over its next-generation chip architecture.
- The Third Circuit's decision on Arm's appeal of the Nuvia verdict.