Delaware jury finds Arm breached Qualcomm architecture licence

The $2 award is nominal. The larger question is whether Qualcomm can stop paying royalties to Arm. Judge Maryellen Noreika has not ruled on that request, which could suspend payments for up to five years.

Verdict in Delaware

A federal jury in Wilmington, Delaware, found on 13 October that Arm breached its architecture licence with Qualcomm and intentionally interfered with the commercialization of Qualcomm's Oryon CPUs, IndexBox reported. The jury awarded one dollar on each of the two claims it upheld, for $2 in total.

Qualcomm said the outcome validated its licensing position and that it would keep developing and supplying Oryon CPUs. Arm said the jury found in its favour on four other claims and awarded one dollar on each of Qualcomm's two claims, and that the verdict confirmed it acted in good faith. IndexBox reported that the jury rejected Qualcomm's allegations that Arm violated other specific terms of the technology licence agreement. The split left both sides able to claim a win.

Royalty freeze carries the real stakes

Qualcomm is seeking to suspend royalty payments to Arm for up to five years. The Manila Times reported the payments at stake could be worth billions of dollars. Arm calls the five-year freeze an unenforceable penalty rather than a legitimate contract remedy. Qualcomm says Arm broke the deal and it should not keep paying as if it did not.

Yahoo Finance reported that Arm's royalty revenue was $715 million in the June quarter. Arm reported $1.29 billion in revenue for the quarter ended 30 June 2026, up 22.4% year on year, according to MarketBeat. Qualcomm is one of Arm's largest customers, accounting for roughly 10% of Arm's total global revenue in fiscal 2024, IndexBox reported. The licence runs through 2033, but the requested freeze covers up to five years.

What Qualcomm alleged

Qualcomm alleged Arm withheld software patches and chip-testing tools due under its licence. It also alleged Arm leaked to Bloomberg in 2024 a letter notifying Qualcomm it was allegedly in breach of a key licence agreement.

Qualcomm's attorney Karen Dunn told the jury the company had been close to a Meta deal when the letter went out. By the time Qualcomm secured the deal, she said, its value had fallen by $170 million. Arm's attorney Gregg LoCascio told the jury that Meta had shifted to AI eyeglasses and away from virtual reality headsets and sought to adjust financial terms. "They were not harmed in the least," he said. Arm also argued Qualcomm could not claim damages over the leak because Qualcomm itself had shared non-public details of antitrust investigations into Arm with the media.

How the fight got here

Qualcomm bought Nuvia in early 2021. Nuvia held an architecture licence from Arm tailored to data center processors. Arm terminated that licence in March 2022 and demanded Qualcomm destroy design files derived from Nuvia's work. Arm sued in Delaware in August 2022.

In December 2024 a jury found the custom CPU technology properly licensed and no breach of the Nuvia contract. The judge entered final judgment for Qualcomm on 30 September 2025. Arm appealed to the Third Circuit, where the matter is still pending.

Qualcomm opened its own front in April 2024 over support and licensing terms. That case reached trial on 5 October 2026 and went to the jury on 9 October.

Inside the courtroom the argument was about rates as much as tools. Arm's attorney pressed CEO Cristiano Amon on a 2013 licensing deal that capped royalties at $1.88 per chip for any chip with at least five central processor cores. He asked whether a data center chip with 288 cores meant Qualcomm paid for five and got 283 free; Amon said he did not see it that way. Qualcomm's attorney returned repeatedly to a chart showing Arm sought a 1,800% increase in royalty payments between version 9 and version 10 of its computing architecture.

What happens next

A related bench trial is considering whether Arm negotiated in good faith over its next-generation v10 architecture. A decision there could come well after the verdict.