8 ms·

Micron Chip Sales Banned in China on Patent Case

116 points by jonknee 8y ago

jonknee 8y ago
> China accounted for more than 50 percent of Micron’s revenue in fiscal 2017, according company data. The stock is getting absolutely hammered, down 7% and still going down: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/mu?p=mu https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/mu?p=mu
- adventured 8y ago
  Given the nature of the news, Micron dropping 5.5% definitely does not qualify as getting absolutely hammered. The Chinese won't be able to hold their position on the Micron case. ZTE dies if they do.
  - oh-kumudo 8y ago
    ZTE is like dying anyway, even the netizens are joking they are subsiding an American company now which has FBI oversee their operations. It is just the whole trade war is going to unfold. It is definitely not easy to win.
dkrich 8y ago
This article just reeks of BS. There is nothing officially substantiated beyond a Micron competitor reporting that a single court issued a temporary preliminary injunction. Micron has denied the report. Given the obvious backlash China would face and the flimsiness of this article, if I were a betting man I'd be buying up Micron stock on this dip. So many things have to happen for this to result in a meaningful impact to Micron's earnings that I'd take the other side of that bet.
- bhouston 8y ago
  That competitor is a very serious threat to Micron. Thus this isn't likely false if it indeed came from UMT, and wasn't a fake news release.
  - dkrich 8y ago
    I'm not necessarily saying that the report is false. More that lots of things have to align in order for this to end with Micron losing significant market share in China. The report has to be true and the injunction enacted and the injunction has to hold up for an extended period of time. Will be interesting to see what Micron says in the coming days. No doubt they would have to publicly address it if they were served with an injunction.
bhouston 8y ago
This is at the exact same time that Chinese-Taiwan competitors has replicated Micro's core IP: https://www.eteknix.com/micron-claims-chinese-startup-has-stolen-memory-secrets/ https://www.eteknix.com/micron-claims-chinese-startup-has-st... Coincidence? Very much unlikely. In many ways Trump's aggressive trade practices may be the only answer to this if Trump focused on China. Unfortunately he seems to be focused on Europe and Canada instead, which are small fry in the grand scheme of things. Fragmented Europe and Canada are not fighting for economic world leadership in the way that China is.
- tooltalk 8y ago
  You know I feel a bit funny about this. These hit-job news articles remind me of Samsung-Apple lawsuits which just ended last week. There were numerous anti-Samsung pieces (eg, the infamous Vanity Fair article comes to my mind which was rumored to have been influenced/paid for by Apple's lawyers at MOFO)_trying to sway the public opinion against Samsung during the course of the lawsuit. Samsung had a couple of opportunities to overturn the case, but the Obama administration actually stepped in in the name of "public interest" and reversed their win, effectively protecting Apple from getting punished for stealing Samsung's IPs. Now, I'm going to wear a tin-foil hat and speculate that these blown-out-of-proportion articles are influenced and/or paid for by Micron and the US trade commission in anticipation of adversarial ruling from China. Micron is a politically well connected company and is also one of the last semi manufacturers in the US. It's important to develop and win public approval before making drastic public/trade policy -- not that Trump would care, but Micron certainly does. I have no problem with this, BTW. I think it's fair to put nation's interest before IPs and other commercial activity -- as the Obama administration did. China likewise can do whatever they see as necessary to protect and nurture their own.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    Exactly. Getting all worked up over this is stupid. It's "war" "propaganda."
    - tooltalk 8y ago
zeusk 8y ago
I'd just like to point out that they released this at midnight in China/Taiwan with hours before close of markets for 4th of July in US.
yuhong 8y ago
Of note is that DRAMeXchange is in China I think too.
- patfla 8y ago
  How is that of note?
onetimemanytime 8y ago
A question: Chinese courts rule against Micron...appeal after appeal. Biased or not, doesn't matter, a court ruling is a ruling. What options does Micron have after exhausting their China appeal options? I have a feeling we already know how they'll rule. I see bad times...China wants the tech and they'll get it. Stealing is much faster and cheaper than spending tens of billions and decades in R&D
funfunfunction 8y ago
The claims in the article seem like hyperbole. The specifics of this sort of thing are very difficult to know, though it does seem like there may have been some state-enabled theft of intellectual property. The key takeaway from this article for me is not the specifics of the case involving Micron, but the attitude of the Chinese government toward non-Chinese companies trying to compete in their country and their willingness to use underhanded tactics to prevent fair competition if it means furthering the agenda of a Chinese national actor. We will have to wait to see how effective US tariffs are at preventing growth of the Chinese economy, but I imagine that they will be viewed as too little too late in the grand scheme of history.
djsumdog 8y ago
I'm glad I bought my DDR4 last month. Prices are already insanely high. I'm paying almost double what I paid in 2016 for the same amount of ram. Does this patent affect current production DRAM? Are we going to see prices go up even more?
- bhouston 8y ago
  I understand a couple very large Chinese factories are about to come online. It should push prices quite a bit lower unless a trade war intervenes.
pwaai 8y ago
r/wsb is certainly taking this news well.... https://i.redditmedia.com/r8e17LwuYxaAstKQy20-gHQAC717sHZxEAEmzR59D_o.png?w=803&s=88ecf05d82ef6de12c820c8b74bcadbe https://i.redditmedia.com/r8e17LwuYxaAstKQy20-gHQAC717sHZxEA...
- patfla 8y ago
  I was wondering how r/wsb translates to options. Ah: wsb = wall street bets. Indeed.
baybal2 8y ago
So, it has begun. Imagine just how nice will it be, once they will go after Qualcomms and Apples. Will not happen you think? Back a few years, just as iPhone 5 began to ship, an administrator of a bonded customs zone decided to detain all and every Apple's shipment for a few weeks just to recheck all and every of their papers, and to make a statement "I am a big man here." And nobody of higher ups seemed to ever given a f##k about a single lowest tier official holding few billion bucks of Apple's money hostage.

116 points by jonknee 8y ago

> China accounted for more than 50 percent of Micron’s revenue in fiscal 2017, according company data. The stock is getting absolutely hammered, down 7% and still going down: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/mu?p=mu https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/mu?p=mu

adventured 8y ago
Given the nature of the news, Micron dropping 5.5% definitely does not qualify as getting absolutely hammered. The Chinese won't be able to hold their position on the Micron case. ZTE dies if they do.
- oh-kumudo 8y ago
  ZTE is like dying anyway, even the netizens are joking they are subsiding an American company now which has FBI oversee their operations. It is just the whole trade war is going to unfold. It is definitely not easy to win.

dkrich 8y ago

This article just reeks of BS. There is nothing officially substantiated beyond a Micron competitor reporting that a single court issued a temporary preliminary injunction. Micron has denied the report. Given the obvious backlash China would face and the flimsiness of this article, if I were a betting man I'd be buying up Micron stock on this dip. So many things have to happen for this to result in a meaningful impact to Micron's earnings that I'd take the other side of that bet.

bhouston 8y ago
That competitor is a very serious threat to Micron. Thus this isn't likely false if it indeed came from UMT, and wasn't a fake news release.
- dkrich 8y ago
  I'm not necessarily saying that the report is false. More that lots of things have to align in order for this to end with Micron losing significant market share in China. The report has to be true and the injunction enacted and the injunction has to hold up for an extended period of time. Will be interesting to see what Micron says in the coming days. No doubt they would have to publicly address it if they were served with an injunction.

bhouston 8y ago

This is at the exact same time that Chinese-Taiwan competitors has replicated Micro's core IP: https://www.eteknix.com/micron-claims-chinese-startup-has-stolen-memory-secrets/ https://www.eteknix.com/micron-claims-chinese-startup-has-st... Coincidence? Very much unlikely. In many ways Trump's aggressive trade practices may be the only answer to this if Trump focused on China. Unfortunately he seems to be focused on Europe and Canada instead, which are small fry in the grand scheme of things. Fragmented Europe and Canada are not fighting for economic world leadership in the way that China is.

tooltalk 8y ago
You know I feel a bit funny about this. These hit-job news articles remind me of Samsung-Apple lawsuits which just ended last week. There were numerous anti-Samsung pieces (eg, the infamous Vanity Fair article comes to my mind which was rumored to have been influenced/paid for by Apple's lawyers at MOFO)_trying to sway the public opinion against Samsung during the course of the lawsuit. Samsung had a couple of opportunities to overturn the case, but the Obama administration actually stepped in in the name of "public interest" and reversed their win, effectively protecting Apple from getting punished for stealing Samsung's IPs. Now, I'm going to wear a tin-foil hat and speculate that these blown-out-of-proportion articles are influenced and/or paid for by Micron and the US trade commission in anticipation of adversarial ruling from China. Micron is a politically well connected company and is also one of the last semi manufacturers in the US. It's important to develop and win public approval before making drastic public/trade policy -- not that Trump would care, but Micron certainly does. I have no problem with this, BTW. I think it's fair to put nation's interest before IPs and other commercial activity -- as the Obama administration did. China likewise can do whatever they see as necessary to protect and nurture their own.
- pishpash 8y ago
  Exactly. Getting all worked up over this is stupid. It's "war" "propaganda."
  - tooltalk 8y ago

zeusk 8y ago

I'd just like to point out that they released this at midnight in China/Taiwan with hours before close of markets for 4th of July in US.

yuhong 8y ago

Of note is that DRAMeXchange is in China I think too.

patfla 8y ago
How is that of note?

onetimemanytime 8y ago

A question: Chinese courts rule against Micron...appeal after appeal. Biased or not, doesn't matter, a court ruling is a ruling. What options does Micron have after exhausting their China appeal options? I have a feeling we already know how they'll rule. I see bad times...China wants the tech and they'll get it. Stealing is much faster and cheaper than spending tens of billions and decades in R&D

funfunfunction 8y ago

The claims in the article seem like hyperbole. The specifics of this sort of thing are very difficult to know, though it does seem like there may have been some state-enabled theft of intellectual property. The key takeaway from this article for me is not the specifics of the case involving Micron, but the attitude of the Chinese government toward non-Chinese companies trying to compete in their country and their willingness to use underhanded tactics to prevent fair competition if it means furthering the agenda of a Chinese national actor. We will have to wait to see how effective US tariffs are at preventing growth of the Chinese economy, but I imagine that they will be viewed as too little too late in the grand scheme of history.

djsumdog 8y ago

I'm glad I bought my DDR4 last month. Prices are already insanely high. I'm paying almost double what I paid in 2016 for the same amount of ram. Does this patent affect current production DRAM? Are we going to see prices go up even more?

bhouston 8y ago
I understand a couple very large Chinese factories are about to come online. It should push prices quite a bit lower unless a trade war intervenes.

pwaai 8y ago

r/wsb is certainly taking this news well.... https://i.redditmedia.com/r8e17LwuYxaAstKQy20-gHQAC717sHZxEAEmzR59D_o.png?w=803&s=88ecf05d82ef6de12c820c8b74bcadbe https://i.redditmedia.com/r8e17LwuYxaAstKQy20-gHQAC717sHZxEA...

patfla 8y ago
I was wondering how r/wsb translates to options. Ah: wsb = wall street bets. Indeed.

baybal2 8y ago

So, it has begun. Imagine just how nice will it be, once they will go after Qualcomms and Apples. Will not happen you think? Back a few years, just as iPhone 5 began to ship, an administrator of a bonded customs zone decided to detain all and every Apple's shipment for a few weeks just to recheck all and every of their papers, and to make a statement "I am a big man here." And nobody of higher ups seemed to ever given a f##k about a single lowest tier official holding few billion bucks of Apple's money hostage.