Tantra Analyst

Summary of Day 5

Check out the summaries of previous days:  Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.

The final day of the trial was a slow-moving soap opera, most of the day with a nail-biting finish that brought victory to Qualcomm.

The day started slow, with the Jury resuming deliberations and remedy discussion scheduling. Around 11 am, the judge summoned the parties back into the room and informed them that the Jury was deadlocked on Question 1 (Whether Nuvia breached Nuvia ALA) and had decided on Question 2 (Whether Qualcomm breached Nuvia ALA) and Question 3 (Are Qualcomm products using Nuvia technology covered under Qualcomm ALA?)

After giving deadlock-related jury instructions, the jury was sent back with additional time. At around 1 pm, they came back without any change. At that point, the judge decided to accept the two decisions and announced the verdict:

Question 1 – No decision; Question 2 – Qualcomm won;  Question 3 – Qualcomm won

Before the decision, Arm’s lawyer tried to convince the judge not to accept the two verdicts, but none of the arguments persuaded her. Additionally, the judge put a high bar for retrial. She will order mediation and is not keen to see them back in court quickly. That makes this case a sure win for Qualcomm.

With that, Qualcomm kept its impressive streak of winning major court trials. Recently, it won against FTC, won one, and settled another case against Apple, and now against Arm (actually SoftBank, which owns 90% of Arm).

Come back for… well, today was the final day. Happy Holidays! Check out our other content on the site!

Highlights of Day 5:

• When the court opened, the judge asked both parties whether they wanted to discuss remedies today before the jury verdict or postpone it to sometime in January. Bot lawyers choose the latter

• About two hours into the day, the judge (through the clerk) asked both parties whether she should check with the jury on progress. But the Arm lawyer declined

• Around 11 am, the judge informed everyone that the jury was deadlocked on Question 1 and had decisions on Question 2 and Question 3

• The jury was summoned back to the courtroom, and the Judge gave them jury instructions related to deadlock and explained what happens if they don’t break the deadlock (retrial with a jury from the same jury pool)

• The jury was given another hour or so to see whether they could converge on Question 1

• It was pretty clear to me at that stage that Qualcomm had won on Question 2 and Question 3 because if they had not, Question 1 would have been an easy decision

• Around 1 pm, the court reconvened. The judge said nothing had changed, and she was ready to accept the decisions for Question 2 and Question 3.

• Arm’s lawyer objected to that, saying Q1 and Q2 are linked, so she should not accept the partial verdict, quoting a possible precedence (Palo Alto vs. Juniper case)

• The judge asked for details. Arm team scrambled to get some specifics, but she was unconvinced about the relevance of the cited precedence

• Arm’s lawyer suggested bringing back the jury on Monday, which the Judge summarily rejected, saying they had already spent more than 10 hours on deliberations and had decided on two questions unanimously. She added that Arm will have a chance for a retrial

• Finally, the jury was brought to the room, and the judge asked each of the jurors whether they could decide on Question 1 if more time was given. All of them said no.

• At that point, she received the verdict from the jury, and the clerk read them out

• After the jury left, the judge came back to the room and discussed the next steps

• She thought the case should have been settled instead of coming to trial

• She will not entertain a quick retrial to come to her court. Instead, she will order mediation for the companies. She even offered to recommend good mediators who have worked on complex cases. But all of that will be next year

• With that, the judge wished happy holidays for everyone and dismissed the court