Micron Chip Sales Banned In China

(RTTNews) - A Chinese court temporarily stopped America's largest memory-chip maker, Micron Technology Inc. (MU) from selling a range of products in China, escalating a battle the companies are waging over allegations of trade-secrets theft and patent infringement.

The patent ruling Tuesday in favor of Micron's rivals comes as U.S. accusations of intellectual-property theft by Chinese businesses and tariff threats increase tensions between Washington and Beijing.

State-owned chip maker Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. and its Taiwanese partner, United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), accused Micron in January in China of making products that violate their separate patents. That came a month after the U.S. company filed a lawsuit in California alleging Jinhua and UMC stole Micron's trade secrets at its Taiwan plant. Jinhua has denied the allegations. Taiwanese prosecutors are also pursuing similar allegations in a continuing case against UMC and some of its employees, who allegedly raided Micron's secrets when they left Micron for UMC. UMC has declined to comment on the allegations.

The Chinese and Taiwanese companies separately said China's Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court ordered two Micron subsidiaries in China to suspend sales of 26 memory products nationwide, including chips, USB sticks and hard drives. The companies had asked the court for the temporary halt to limit "irreparable damage" to their businesses; the patent trial is continuing.