Memory buyers in Europe now face the possibility that Micron products cannot be imported, after a Munich court ruled against the US maker in two patent cases covering flash storage. The regional court’s 7th Civil Chamber, presided over by Judge Oliver Schon, sided with Yangtze Memory Technologies and granted injunctions on two German utility models.
Both rest on obscure structural claims about how a stacked storage device is built, and both are first-instance decisions. Micron can appeal, and it can ask the Munich Higher Regional Court to suspend enforcement while the case continues. Three further YMTC suits, over multi-stack storage and deposited semiconductor plugs, were adjourned rather than decided.
Utility models are unexamined rights with a ten-year term, which gives YMTC a fast route to blocking orders without waiting out a full examination. The dispute opened in November 2023 and has since spread across China, the United States and Europe. YMTC has become a serious volume player in the meantime, shipping enough flash to rank third globally by units.
