A small patent firm just put a US import ban on Micron's DRAM

The United States International Trade Commission has formally opened Investigation No. 337-TA-1523 against Micron, Supermicro, HPE and Lenovo, six weeks after Netlist filed its complaint↗ ¹². Netlist, a small Irvine memory-patent firm traded over the counter, wants DDR5 RDIMMs and MRDIMMs, the registered modules that hold an AI server's working memory, barred from US import ¹³. "We intend to continue our enforcement efforts against unauthorized users such as Micron," Chief Executive C.K. Hong said ¹.

Institution opens the case and decides nothing: the respondents will contest infringement, patent validity and the remedy itself, and the commission awards no damages, only import blocks ³. Micron has said nothing in public about the case and faces a 20-day deadline to respond ⁴.

Samsung paid $898 million for peace

The template arrived on 5 August, when Samsung settled five years of fighting with a license worth up to about $898 million gross↗, a $1.5 billion memory supply commitment and a 10 million share stake ⁴⁵. Under the settlement, Samsung also agreed to supply Netlist with documents and declarations for ITC cases against third parties ⁴. Samsung bought immunity and armed the complainant, so an exclusion order against Micron would tilt DDR5 share toward the licensed rival.

Micron's own record against this plaintiff is ugly. A Texas jury awarded Netlist $445 million in May 2024 for willful infringement of two DDR4 patents, and the Federal Circuit affirmed a Netlist patent against Micron this February ⁴. Two of the four patents now asserted, the '523 and the '366, have already survived appellate and patent-office challenges, by Tech Times's account ⁴. The record cuts both ways: on 2 September the same court affirmed board rulings that invalidated every challenged claim of three other Netlist patents↗ ⁶.

An 84.6 percent margin in the crosshairs

Micron's quarter ended 28 May 2026 booked $41.5 billion of revenue, up 345.7 percent in a year, at an 84.6 percent gross margin ⁷. Fourth-quarter results follow on 30 September↗, on the company's own calendar ⁸. The case targets the family Micron just crowned: a 512GB DDR5 RDIMM shown on 15 September, with volume planned for the second half of 2027 ⁹.

Whoever buys memory pays

In January, 64GB DDR5 RDIMMs traded above $1,500 and 96GB modules above $3,200 on 54-week lead times, with more than 75 percent of DDR5 output already allocated to hyperscalers ⁴. TrendForce expects third-quarter server DRAM contract prices to rise another 13 to 18 percent, and German retail DDR5 prices in August hit 4.86 times their July 2025 level↗ ¹⁰. Carmakers are stripping features as memory costs jump ¹¹.

Micron is the only DRAM maker headquartered in America, and Samsung, SK hynix and Micron together hold roughly 87 percent of industry revenue; China's CXMT, at 10 percent, prices 5 to 10 percent below the incumbents ⁴¹². Trial typically comes within a year, a final determination in 12 to 16 months, and any exclusion order faces a 60-day presidential review on public-interest grounds ¹³⁴.

The only American DRAM maker now sits one trade ruling away from being locked out of American AI servers. If Micron runs Samsung's math, this ends in a license rather than a ban, and the number to watch is the price.