Yangtze Memory Technologies Company, also known as YMTC, has filed the third lawsuit in an extended legal battle against American competitor Micron. YMTC is now accusing Micron of funding and perpetuating an extended misinformation campaign with the help of American public affairs firm DCI Group aimed at slandering YMTC.
The new suit leveled against Micron claims that the American firm has "lagged behind YMTC in innovation and product performance," causing it to resort to illegal means to get ahead. Specifically, Micron is accused of funding DCI Group's "China Tech Threat" astroturfing campaign website. The CTT website, which claims that YMTC's NAND memory chips include spyware backdoors to the Chinese Communist Party, has been reportedly funded in large part by U.S. tech companies Micron and Dell.
"Astroturfing," a word used repeatedly in the YMTC lawsuit, refers to the practice of disguising corporate interests and messaging as grassroots advocacy. YMTC's newest lawsuit hinges on Micron funding China Tech Threat, along with other major U.S. tech firms, and also states that the claims bought and paid for were provably false. For example, a NAND Flash chip does not have built-in communications abilities to send its data overseas, as CTT alleges.
The lawsuit is the third in a protracted legal battle between Micron and YMTC. YMTC first became labelled as an enemy of U.S. tech interests in 2022, when the company was blacklisted by the Department of Commerce as a potential Entity with connections to the Chinese government or military. YMTC responded by convincing the Chinese Cybersecurity Review Office to ban Micron devices for use in Chinese government computers.
In 2023, YMTC leveled its first lawsuit against Micron, accusing the company of breaking 11 of YMTC's copyrights. Micron soon filed a countersuit, instead accusing YMTC of violating its own copyrights. A recent court order in the case ordered Micron to hand over 73 pages of confidential documents regarding company technologies as part of discovery in the case.
Micron earlier this week filed a motion to block this order, alleging that YMTC had requested too many pages and would surely steal sensitive information from the documents. However, the nature of the discovery, meaning that the documents would be printed, available for eyes only, and would not be seen by YMTC but by YMTC's court-approved outside counsel and experts, makes this claim somewhat shaky.
Micron's alleged partners who have been confirmed to be involved in the China Tech Threat astroturf campaign have been provably making money off of the anti-China campaign, according to the YMTC lawsuit. Other China Tech Threat claims have included uncited and unprovable claims that YMTC was involved in a Social Security scam in 2020, or that PC OEM Lenovo is also a Chinese spy asset (U.S. OEM Dell was also found to have monetarily backed the CTT website).
The YMTC and Micron legal battle shows no signs of slowing down. Micron is a famously litigious company — though it has lost similar legal battles claiming IP theft from other Chinese tech firms (like its 5-year legal battle against Fujian Jinhua). How Micron will fare now, engaged in both a lawsuit claiming patent theft and one alleging defamation and misinformation, has yet to be seen.
