Qualcomm's Znew proposal is basically an attempt to skirt ARM royalties while keeping a design that is very close to ARM64 (basically, throw out 16-bit instructions then add some new modes and complex 32-bit instructions ARM uses to make up for it).
This smells of them trying to convert Nuvia from ARM to RISC-V so the entire Nuvia case basically goes away before they get forced to pay out a lot of money.
Arm's case isn't about the ISA, it's about use of IP developed by Nuvia with help from Arm under Nuvia's Arm license being used in a way that isn't compatible with the terms of Nuvia's license.
IANAL but I'd be astonished if they get away with that IP making its way into RISC-V designs, if Arm win.
Plus, they won't have anything RISC-V based available in anywhere near the required timescales. They're still arguing about the ISA after all!
ARM's case is that a uarch is necessarily tied to its ISA and that their license isn't transferrable because the contract plainly says so.
If Qualcomm can show up and say "here's our uarch running a different ISA", it disproves that point and at most leaves dispute about some patents where Qualcomm can probably get a quick settlement for far less than the royalties would cost them.
The whole point of Znew is to transform RISC-V into something so similar to ARM64 that they can swap out the decoder and be good to go.
This smells of them trying to convert Nuvia from ARM to RISC-V so the entire Nuvia case basically goes away before they get forced to pay out a lot of money.