Headlines are screaming about ARM ‘canceling’ Qualcomm’s IP license, but what is really happening? The effects in the short and mid-term are just about zero in any sphere save messaging.
Yesterday’s announcement by ARM that is giving Qualcomm 60 days notice of an IP license cancellation sure sounds important but the reality is far removed. As you probably guessed, this will end up in court long before the deadline and things will get put on hold in a legal sense as the arguments, legal filings, appeals, and the rest grind on. 61 days in there will be no functional changes except for a lot of lawyers buying new Mercedes, not coincidentally a new partner that Qualcomm just announced for their automotive offerings. See guys, I do work things in when you least expect it.
So why is ARM doing this now? Because the IP trial over the Nuvia license and acquisition takes place in December, specifically a little less than 60 days from now. More importantly, this potshot from ARM also occurred in the middle of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit with much of the world’s tech press and most executives gathered. Distractions, executive bandwidth, and changing the topic of conversations to one that annoys Qualcomm folk all in one go. ARM achieved that with a little leak and won the media wars but likely lost the plot.
SemiAccurate says this because ARM may be completely justified in the license pull but, well, doing it in public is taking the low road. Officially there is nothing on the ARM site about this so they ‘didn’t announce it’, but it is clearly an official leak to Bloomberg. Since we have good reason to distrust the morals of the site and the author of the Bloomberg piece, you can read about it in an Ars Technical piece with a link to the original in that story.
No company ever discusses license terms like this in public so this is nothing more than kicking Qualcomm when they are busy and amplifying the annoyance through the surrounding conference they are holding. ARM didn’t need to do this. Why? Because we are confident in saying that they are going to beat Qualcomm like a drum in court, let the facts talk, not the largely irrelevant social media circus of stupidity. The fact that it will make literally no difference to the product development of either side just makes it more silly. But ARM did it.
That brings us to the most important part, what will Qualcomm do when ARM (likely) beats them in court? Don’t worry gentle readers, Qualcomm has a plan B that will insulate them from the technical side of ARM’s license games and court battles but the monetary side of the court actions are another story entirely. More on this is to come.S|A
Charlie Demerjian
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