How is that relevant? Is there a law that says you’re allowed to do that except if you have the wrong business model? Licensing the ISA does not mean that they abandon their IP or anything. They still have the exact same rights as Intel, give or take the license agreements they have in place, things like FRAND commitments, and antitrust issues.
If there is any reason to treat them differently, that would be the weight they have in the mobile CPU market, not the fact that they decided to sell licenses.
IP law is fundamentally different from product distribution law, and antitrust doesn’t really apply to IP (FRAND being a good counter-example, but that is rooted in contracts).
All IP is monopolistic, and there is no first sale doctrine. If I buy a physical book from you, it is mine to do with as I see fit. If I license the right to publish your book as part of a set, I am not necessarily allowed to sell that set into your channels and undercut your pricing. The terms of the contract dictate that, and it is not at all an antitrust violation of our contract says I am only to sell the set to schools or whatever.
> IP law is fundamentally different from product distribution law, and antitrust doesn’t really apply to IP
It is relevant when IP is used in an anticompetitive way, like Microsoft’s licensing terms back in the day. I can see a company making the argument that ARM is dominant enough that onerous terms with one company and not the others is anticompetitive (not saying that it is the case, but I have seen worse points seeing some successes recently).
Because they're licensing the design of the chips. The idea that you can impose conditions on what I'm allowed to do with the blueprints you sold me are preposterous.
Can you make me not call it an ARM chip, probably. Can you compel me not to make the chip at all -- crazy.
> Because they're licensing the design of the chips. The idea that you can impose conditions on what I'm allowed to do with the blueprints you sold me are preposterous.
It all depends on the licensing agreement. The vast majority of them have this sort of restrictions. The way it works is that a license agreement gives some rights, but not all of them. If you get a license, you have to follow the terms you agreed, which often have a whole bunch of restrictions. Whether you thing it is preposterous is not really here nor there.
It is not far fetched to have agreements covering one type of cores and not others, or things like that. Or, in software terms, a license to run some software on 12 cores and not 13. Or to install it on netbooks and not proper laptops.
A license is an authorisation to use some IP. It does not make the IP yours.
> Can you make me not call it an ARM chip, probably. Can you compel me not to make the chip at all -- crazy.
Well, then I guess the world is crazy.
In a case like this, you’d be perfectly able to make a chip, just not with the IP tied to a licensing term you don’t agree with… Well, some companies try to have more restrictive terms than that occasionally, like Microsoft who prevented OEMs from selling computers without Windows, or Google who prevents OEMs from making Android-derivative devices.
tl;dr if you put it in the contract and you agree to it then it must be fine.
This kind of thinking makes the world worse for everyone except parties that have leverage. No matter what, no company should be able exert so much will over another that it actively prevents anyone but them iterating on their design.
Any time you see an agreement like “we’ll give you x only on the condition you not compete with us” alarm bells should ring.
If there is any reason to treat them differently, that would be the weight they have in the mobile CPU market, not the fact that they decided to sell licenses.