Micron to Pay $600 Million to Netlist to Settle Patent Dispute
Netlist announced that Micron will pay $600 million for a five-year license to its patent portfolio, paid in quarterly installments through 2031, to resolve a legal dispute.
Listen to this story
Netlist announced that Micron will pay $600 million for a five-year license to its patent portfolio, which includes high-bandwidth memory technologies and server memory modules.
The amount will be paid at a rate of $30 million every three months, starting from the fourth quarter of 2026 through the third quarter of 2031. This schedule turns the agreement into a regular cash flow for Netlist instead of a lump sum, providing it with recurring revenue over five years.
The agreement follows a $445 million patent infringement ruling awarded in favor of Netlist against Micron in Texas in 2024, as well as a complaint filed by Netlist in September with the U.S. International Trade Commission targeting imports of Micron chips used in AI products by Google, Nvidia, and Broadcom.
Netlist CEO C.K. Hong said the agreement further validates the value of its technologies in AI memory. These chips are a key component in servers used to train and run AI models, heightening the importance of the intellectual property dispute.
What Do These Terms Mean?
Patent: A legal right granting its holder the exclusive right to exploit an invention for a specified period, which can be licensed to others for a fee.
High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM): A type of memory chip with high data transfer speeds, heavily used in AI processors.
International Trade Commission: A U.S. agency that reviews complaints regarding dumping and trade violations, and has the authority to block the import of non-compliant products.
Weekly Newsletter
Read between the lines before everyone else. Decode the most important economic, tech, and decision-maker movements in the region.. in 5 minutes every Saturday.
