Court slaps sales ban on Micron products

US chipmaker Micron Technology Inc is caught in legal trouble in China, after a court issued a preliminary injunction, temporarily stopping it from selling parts of its products amid patent disputes.

According to a statement by Micron’s rival United Microelectronics Corp, the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court issued a preliminary injunction banning Micron from selling dozens of products in China, including dynamic random access memory and Nand flash memory-related products.

UMC and Micron are locked in patent disputes. As the legal case is still ongoing, the court declined to disclose further information, and the preliminary injunction is not available on its official website.

Micron said it had not been served with the injunction and would not comment at the moment.

UMC said in the statement that the court also ordered Micron to delete advertisements and purchasing links for related products from its official website.

This is the latest development in UMC’s lawsuit against Micron. In January, UMC alleged that Micron had infringed on its patents in China related to memory storage and other products. It asked the court to ban Micron from manufacturing, importing or selling the allegedly infringing products, and also destroy all inventory and pay compensation.

Micron also took legal action last year, suing UMC and its partner Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co for the alleged theft of its memory chip secrets.

China is the world’s largest semiconductor market. Its annual chip imports totaled more than $200 billion in recent years, more than it spends on crude oil imports.

Micron’s financial reports showed that China accounted for more than 50 percent of its revenue in the 2017 fiscal year.

Micron confirmed earlier that China’s antitrust regulator is already investigating the company. People familiar with the matter told China Daily earlier that the probe is related to increases in chip prices.