> 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 prepo

> 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.