How can Nuvia IP be invalid? Well, that's the beauty of Intellectual Property: it's not really a property it's a weird legal construct. Arm argues the entire Nuvia IP should have disappeared because the license allowing it to exist was voided when Qualcomm bought Nuvia. And Qualcomm had no legal right to move the IP on the foundation of their ARM license. They argue Qualcomm should've negotiated for a new license to use Nuvia IP. Whether they are right or not is up for the courts to decide but they make a legally sound argument without a doubt.
If this makes no sense then here's a simple example: a DVD is not property, it's intellectual property. If it were property then region locks couldn't exist. Compare it to a book. You buy a book in London, no one stops you from reading it in New York, it's your property. Absurdity is the name of the game: in the DeCSS trial it was argued Johansen trespassed on his own computer.
Edit: ah, I have a better, simpler explanation: Arm and Nuvia made a contract. Qualcomm bought Nuvia. Arm argues Qualcomm violated the terms of the contract. That's it.
The problem is that Qualcomm-ARM may already have a license contract that's a superset of Nuvia-ARM.
Depending on the wording of Qualcomm's architectural ARM license, it seems like that might cover Nuvia's IP?
Or in other words, if anyone who wasn't an ARM architectural licensee bought Nuvia, Nuvia's IP would have been unusable.
But because someone with a "do anything custom with this core" bought Nuvia, Qualcomm effectively bought some "anything custom".
The real IP needle in this haystack seems to be: what ARM IP did Nuvia use that Qualcomm doesn't already have an architectural license for? I.e. extra sauce ARM shared with them for their specific use case.
Which sets up for a SCO-Unix-style threshing of technical details for individual pieces.
Which I imagine both ARM and Qualcomm will eventually want to avoid, as they'd like to continue doing business together, so this will eventually collapse into a new licensing agreement that covers all claims. (Assuming neither pisses the other off badly enough to salt the earth)
> Depending on the wording of Qualcomm's architectural ARM license, it seems like that might cover Nuvia's IP?
Right, but ARM says "Nuvia’s licensing fees and royalty rates reflected the anticipated scope and nature of Nuvia’s use of the Arm architecture. The licenses safeguarded Arm’s rights and expectations by prohibiting assignment without Arm’s consent, regardless of whether a contemplated assignee had its own Arm licenses"
Basically ARM says Qualcomm should pay more than they did before because no, their blanket doesn't cover Nuvia.
> so this will eventually collapse into a new licensing agreement that covers all claims
Obviously. That's the crux of the matter. Qualcomm says they shouldn't pay more, ARM says they should.
If this makes no sense then here's a simple example: a DVD is not property, it's intellectual property. If it were property then region locks couldn't exist. Compare it to a book. You buy a book in London, no one stops you from reading it in New York, it's your property. Absurdity is the name of the game: in the DeCSS trial it was argued Johansen trespassed on his own computer.
Edit: ah, I have a better, simpler explanation: Arm and Nuvia made a contract. Qualcomm bought Nuvia. Arm argues Qualcomm violated the terms of the contract. That's it.