The lawsuit that Arm Holdings filed against Qualcomm resulted in a mistrial on Friday.
TakeAway Points:
- Arm Holdings’ lawsuit against Qualcomm ended in a mistrial on Friday, with a jury delivering a mixed verdict that found for Qualcomm on a crucial issue, saying Qualcomm had properly licensed its central processor chips.
- Arm’s shares were down 1.8% in extended trading after the news, and Qualcomm’s shares were up 1.8%.
- Democratic Senator Ed Markey and Republican Senator Rand Paul urged President Joe Biden to extend by 90 days a Jan. 19 deadline for China-based ByteDance to sell the U.S. assets of its short-video app TikTok or face a ban.
Arm lawsuit ends in mistrial with Qualcomm securing key win
The jury returned a mixed decision in favour of Qualcomm on a key point, finding that the company had legally licenced its central processor chips.
Arm’s shares were down 1.8% in extended trading after the news, and Qualcomm’s shares were up 1.8%.
The outcome means the case could be tried again in the future. Judge Maryellen Noreika, who presided over the case in U.S. federal court in Delaware, encouraged Arm and Qualcomm to mediate their dispute.
“I don’t think either side had a clear victory or would have had a clear victory if this case is tried again,” Noreika told the parties.
After more than nine hours of deliberations over two days, the eight-person jury in U.S. federal court could not reach a unanimous verdict on the question of whether Nuvia, a startup that Qualcomm purchased for $1.4 billion in 2021, breached the terms of its license with Arm.
But the jury found that Qualcomm did not breach Nuvia’s license with Arm.
The jury also found that Qualcomm’s chips created using Nuvia technology, which have been central to Qualcomm’s push into the personal computer market, are properly licensed under its own agreement with Arm, clearing the way for Qualcomm to continue selling them.
“The jury has vindicated Qualcomm’s right to innovate and affirmed that all the Qualcomm products at issue in the case are protected by Qualcomm’s contract with Arm,” Qualcomm said in a statement.
“My biggest worry was what happens to the future roadmap if they no longer have access to Nuvia (computing) cores,” Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said. “At this point, that risk is a lot closer to being off the table.”
Senators urge Biden to grant ByteDance 90-day reprieve from law requiring sale
Democratic Senator Ed Markey and Republican Senator Rand Paul on Thursday urged President Joe Biden to extend by 90 days a Jan. 19 deadline for China-based ByteDance to sell the U.S. assets of its short-video app TikTok or face a ban.
The Supreme Court said on Wednesday it will consider the legal challenge of TikTok and ByteDance, seeking an injunction to halt the looming ban or sale and will hold arguments on the matter on Jan. 10. “Given the law’s uncertain future and its consequences for free expression, we urge you to trigger the 90-day extension before January 19,” the senators wrote Biden.
The contention
The challengers are appealing a lower court’s ruling that upheld the law. TikTok is used by about 170 million Americans. Congress passed the measure in April and Biden, a Democrat, signed it into law. The Justice Department had said that as a Chinese company, TikTok poses “a national-security threat of immense depth and scale” because of its access to vast amounts of data on American users, from locations to private messages, and its ability to secretly manipulate content that Americans view on the app. TikTok has said it poses no imminent threat to U.S. security.
TikTok and ByteDance say the law violates free speech protections under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday, in a brief filed with the Supreme Court, urged the court to reject any delay, comparing TikTok to a hardened criminal. Other senators like Republican Josh Hawley and Democrat Richard Blumenthal say ByteDance must follow the law.
Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok during his first term in the White House in 2020, has reversed his stance and promised during the presidential race this year that he would try to save TikTok. Trump said this week he has “a warm spot in my heart for TikTok” and that he would “take a look” at the matter.
Trump takes office on Jan. 20, the day after the TikTok deadline under the law.
