TapTechNews June 17th, according to a report by Korean media Businesskorea, South Korean patent management company MimirIP filed a lawsuit against memory giant Micron in the US on June 3rd, seeking $480 million (TapTechNews note: currently about 3.492 billion Chinese yuan).
This is the first time a South Korean Non-practicing Entity (NPE) has sued a US semiconductor company. MimirIP's lawsuit also targets companies such as Tesla, Dell, HP, and Lenovo that use Micron products.
MimirIP previously acquired 1500 semiconductor patents from SK Hynix in May, and this lawsuit involves 6 patents related to circuits, voltage measuring devices, and non-volatile memory devices.
The emergence of NPE allows companies to exert legal pressure on competitors without getting directly involved and share certain incomes from lawsuit judgments or settlements, and has been increasingly used by more and more semiconductor companies:
As early as September 2022, NPE enterprise DaedalusPrime filed an infringement lawsuit against Samsung Electronics and TSMC for the Intel patents it holds;
And in June 2023, Samsung Display transferred the exclusive license rights of its 96 US patents to its patent subsidiary IKT, allowing IKT to file legal actions on behalf of Samsung Display.
In addition, Micron also sold more than 400 patents to NPE enterprise LonghornIP at the end of 2023.
Industry insiders said that the global memory market is currently jointly monopolized by a few giants. Previously, all parties avoided patent conflicts by cross-licensing some patents.
This lawsuit filed by MimirIP holding SK Hynix patents against Micron means that the competition for the dominant position in the memory market expands from the technical field to the patent field, which is expected to have a more far-reaching impact on the semiconductor industry.