YMTC has its first enforceable ruling against Micron in a three-year, five-jurisdiction fight over 3D NAND, and it won it not with a European patent but with two German utility models that no examiner ever read.
The 7th Civil Chamber of the Munich Regional Court found two utility models, DE 20 2021 004 551 and DE 20 2020 006 166, valid and infringed and granted injunctions in cases 7 O 12614/25 and 7 O 12615/25, JUVE Patent reports, adding that Micron has appealed. The decisions came on September 18, as reported by DigiTimes and carried by Tom's Hardware, which relays Micron's response that it disagrees, has appealed and is challenging the rights' validity. TechNode reports the injunctions cover the sale of infringing products in Germany, and none of these reports names the Micron products concerned.
Here the instrument matters more than the score. A German utility model is registered, not examined, and lives at most ten years, so the Munich judges did the validity work themselves. The DPMA register shows how YMTC got here: DE166, on the staircase structure of a 3D memory device, was filed in March 2020, branched off a pending European application and registered on October 13, 2025; DE551, on barrier layers for word line contacts in 3D NAND, was filed in December 2021, branched off another and registered on October 14, 2025. JUVE puts YMTC's Munich filings in October of last year, so registration and lawsuit landed in the same month, which is what the branch-off is for: claims drafted with the accused parts already on the market and asserted as soon as the stamp is dry. Both are in force per the register, each with a cancellation request lodged in March, and ten years from filing puts expiry in March 2030 and December 2031.
Both injunctions are first-instance orders. ip fray expects enforcement to begin soon unless the Munich Higher Regional Court stays both. That stay is the whole game in Germany, because everything else on the docket is a 2027 event.
Everything else in Munich, per JUVE, is adjourned: the other two utility models return in June and September of next year, and the European patent in the same batch, EP 3 931 868, goes to a September 2027 hearing after the European Patent Office gave a preliminary opinion in a parallel opposition on September 8. YMTC's three claims at the Unified Patent Court in Düsseldorf are heard in February, and a UK High Court action is at case management. Scored honestly: one win from five German cases, nothing final before 2027, and the examined European patents undecided.
Micron is no longer only defending. JUVE reports it filed its own Munich infringement action against YMTC over EP 3 706 127 in mid-July, with a hearing set for June 2027, and has UPC actions running in Düsseldorf over EP 3 574 526 and in Mannheim over EP 2 745 295. The defendants in those two are not YMTC but Ultron, Lexar and Apacer, described by JUVE as a hardware maker and two storage-product suppliers, and a new UK action names YMTC alongside Lexar, Apacer and Team Group. Read the defendant list and Micron's theory of pressure is plain: the fab in Wuhan is hard to reach with a European order, but the brands that turn NAND into drives and modules are not.
The near-term gate is the stay. If the Higher Regional Court lets the injunctions run, YMTC holds enforceable German orders against Micron for at least the year until the remaining rights are heard, and every brand on the UK and UPC dockets will price that into its next NAND contract.
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