A Chinese court temporarily banned Micron Technology Inc. chip sales in the world's largest semiconductor market, Taiwanese rival United Microelectronics said.
In a patent ruling in favor of UMC, the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court of the People's Republic of China issued a preliminary injunction stopping Micron from selling 26 products, including dynamic random access memory and Nand flash memory-related products, UMC said in a statement Tuesday. Micron said it hasn't been served with the injunction.
Last December, Micron filed a civil lawsuit in the state of California, accusing UMC of secret infringement of intellectual property related to its DRAM chips. In January, UMC filed a patent infringement lawsuits against Micron.
Earlier in the day, UMC said the injunction stops Micron from selling certain DRAM and NAND-related items, including solid-state hard drives and memory sticks in China.
The Micron ban escalates a trade dispute between China and the U.S. U.S. President Donald Trump has railed against Chinese companies for allegedly stealing U.S. companies' intellectual property
China's Huawei Technologies and ZTE are fighting U.S. government action that threatens to cut them off from U.S. suppliers and potential customers. On Monday, the U.S. moved to block China Mobile Ltd. from entering the U.S. market, citing national security grounds. Meanwhile, Qualcomm is still waiting for permission from Chinese regulators to complete its acquisition of NXP Semiconductors NV.