Micron balks at court order to share 73 pages of sensitive data with China's banned YMTC chipmaker — Micron strives to protect IP from Chinese chip firm on the entity list
73 pages of it.

The legal battle between Micron and YMTC has taken a new turn: The US chip giant wants to overturn earlier agreements and court rulings, citing national security concerns.
Under those prior rulings, YMTC gained access to 73 pages of Micron's confidential 3D NAND technology documentation, but now Micron wants to reverse that and leave YMTC without such access. While Micron's petition may seem unusual in the digital age, as observed by PatentlyO, there might be a reason behind the move.
Micron has petitioned the Supreme Court for 'a writ of mandamus,' challenging lower court rulings that allowed Yangtze Memory Technologies Company (YMTC) to receive 73 pages of printed copies of Micron's confidential documents during discovery as part of the 2023 litigation under which YMTC accused Micron of patent infringement.
Micron argues that the district court ignored key provisions of the protective order and therefore failed to consider national security concerns associated with disclosing sensitive semiconductor information to a Chinese state-supported company that is on the U.S. Department of Commerce's Entity List.
Micron's argument began with the nature of the dispute. In the 2023 case, YMTC alleged that Micron's 3D NAND memory products infringed several of its patents. Discovery proceeded under a jointly agreed-upon protective order that limited access to highly sensitive materials, such as source code, to outside counsel and experts, excluding company employees. It also restricted printed copies to 1,500 pages overall and no more than 30 consecutive pages.
"YMTC demanded 10 times more printed pages of source code for Micron's latest-generation chips than it had for earlier-generation chips," a statement by Micron reads.
Eventually, YMTC requested 73 printed pages from Micron's '150 Series Traveler Presentation,' containing information about Micron's latest and upcoming 3D NAND devices. Although numerically compliant with the protective order's page limits, Micron objected, claiming that the request was excessive, unnecessary, and dangerous given the nature of the information and YMTC's links to the Chinese government.
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Nonetheless, the court ruled that Yangtze Memory could get access to the printed 73 pages. Now, while an avid reader of Tom's Hardware is probably fluent with copying via a wide range of means, gaining hardware copies under a protective court order does not mean that one can make copies, at least legally. These are for eyes only — if everyone follows the rules.
Under the protective order, only authorized individuals, in this case, YMTC's outside counsel and experts, can handle the originals. Also, no duplication of printed copies is allowed, no scanning, no photocopying, and no electronic reproduction; this is strictly prohibited.
In addition, every page is Bates-numbered and tracked; any duplication would be a violation of the protective order and subject to court sanctions, including penalties, adverse rulings, or contempt of court. If YMTC or its legal team were to make unauthorized copies, they would be in serious legal trouble, and there is no evidence they have. Nonetheless, Micron wants this decision to be reversed.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
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pug_s Awww, could sharing these 73 pages would reveal that Micron is pulling a sham lawsuit against YMTC?Reply -
GenericUser2001
You have that backwards - YMTC is the one suing Micron, claiming patent violation. Micron is claiming that YMTC is abusing the discovery process to gain access to sensitive material.pug_s said:Awww, could sharing these 73 pages would reveal that Micron is pulling a sham lawsuit against YMTC?
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/ymtc-sues-micron-in-the-us-accusing-micron-of-infringing-11-of-its-patents -
pug_s
You're right. Micron probably has something to hide, lol.GenericUser2001 said:You have that backwards - YMTC is the one suing Micron, claiming patent violation. Micron is claiming that YMTC is abusing the discovery process to gain access to sensitive material.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/ymtc-sues-micron-in-the-us-accusing-micron-of-infringing-11-of-its-patents -
Zizi Mai Shameless for Micron to steal YMTC IP. The world knows YMTC was the first to develop 3D NAND with Micron following later. There is no stealing of IP by YMTC as what Micron has is irrelevant to YMTC who had already developed it's own 3D NAND IP manufacturing process ahead of Micron. Micron's argument would have been valid if Micron is the first to develop & produce 3D NAND.Reply -
PixyMisa Zizi Mai said:Shameless for Micron to steal YMTC IP. The world knows YMTC was the first to develop 3D NAND with Micron following later. There is no stealing of IP by YMTC as what Micron has is irrelevant to YMTC who had already developed it's own 3D NAND IP manufacturing process ahead of Micron. Micron's argument would have been valid if Micron is the first to develop & produce 3D NAND.
3D NAND was developed by Toshiba nine years before YMTC even existed. -
thaddeusk As soon as a Chinese entity has the documents, you can't trust that they won't copy it.Reply -
MikeH95 Comments completely misunderstood the article. The 73 pages requested have nothing to do with the ORIGINAL 3d nand technology. They want the new, cutting edge technology information.Reply -
d0x360 Zizi Mai said:Shameless for Micron to steal YMTC IP. The world knows YMTC was the first to develop 3D NAND with Micron following later. There is no stealing of IP by YMTC as what Micron has is irrelevant to YMTC who had already developed it's own 3D NAND IP manufacturing process ahead of Micron. Micron's argument would have been valid if Micron is the first to develop & produce 3D NAND.
Wumao detected, if you're going to make stuff up at least make it plausible.
Prior art.. sorry. Regardless it's irrelevant because they are trying to get information on other newer technologies via discovery because they can't replicate and want to STEAL the processes from Micron.
The government should step in exactly for national security reasons and shut this nonsense down immediately. -
izmanq
sure, as if US can be trusted and honest 😏thaddeusk said:As soon as a Chinese entity has the documents, you can't trust that they won't copy it. -
CNman The comment area is funny. First it’s the court ruling, which means court believes the 73 pages are necessary and important to the case. Not YMTC want to see anything so they get. Ps. It’s a US court ruling.Reply
If any company is accused IP theft, and the
Accuser is on the so called entity list, so the company no needs to answer to the court rulings. Then it means US company can steal almost almost all Chinese IP (most of owners are on US entity list) and any Chinese company can do exactly the same following American steps. Is this way? I thought US always clean so they can always accuse others.