Arm Holdings Plc is terminating its architectural license agreement with Qualcomm Inc., which permitted Qualcomm to use Arm’s intellectual property for chip design, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, Arm has issued a mandatory 60-day notice to Qualcomm regarding the cancellation of the licensing agreement. This contract previously enabled Qualcomm to develop its own chips based on Arm’s proprietary standards.

Arm declined to comment on the situation, while Qualcomm did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters outside of regular business hours.

This announcement coincides with an ongoing legal battle between the two tech companies, which is slated to begin in federal court in Delaware this December.

The British firm, majority-owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group, filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm in 2022 for allegedly failing to negotiate a new licensing agreement after acquiring a new company.

The lawsuit centers on technology acquired by Qualcomm from Nuvia, a startup founded by former Apple chip engineers, which Qualcomm purchased for $1.4 billion in 2021. Qualcomm aimed to leverage Nuvia’s technology to compete with Apple by developing chips that could rival the Apple M-series processors and challenge the desktop market dominated by Intel and AMD.

While the acquisition was initially seen as routine, Arm claims that Qualcomm’s use of Nuvia’s designs violates the licensing agreement. The licenses granted to Nuvia were specifically intended for a startup and could not be directly used by Qualcomm without Arm’s approval.

Arm has previously emphasized that, ‘Arm is filing this claim to protect Arm, our partners, and the unparalleled ecosystem we have built together. Arm and its partners have invested billions of dollars to create industry-leading intellectual property. Because Qualcomm attempted to transfer Nuvia licenses without Arm’s consent, which is a standard restriction under Arm’s license agreements, Nuvia’s licenses were terminated in March 2022. Before and after that date, Arm made multiple good faith efforts to seek a resolution. In contrast, Qualcomm has breached the terms of the Arm license agreement by continuing development under the terminated licenses. Arm was left with no choice but to bring this claim against Qualcomm and Nuvia to protect our IP, our business, and to ensure customers are able to access valid Arm-based products.’

(Photo credit: Arm)