Yangtze Memory Technologies Co Ltd v Micron Technology Inc & Anor

Facts

Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd (YMTC), a company incorporated in the People's Republic of China, is the claimant in patent proceedings in the Patents Court against Micron Technology, Inc. (a Delaware company) and Micron Europe Limited. The proceedings concern EP660 and other patents, which are to be tried in two trials, Trial A and Trial B. The matter came before Mr Justice Meade at a second case management conference. Two matters were in dispute. The first concerned the List of Issues in the Disclosure Review Document (DRD), in particular issue 1(g), which asked how and why YMTC decided to apply for patent protection for the subject matter of EP660, and which had a knock-on effect on the disclosure to be given on issues 1(e) and 1(f), concerning contact between named ex-employees and the listed inventors and how EP660 was developed. YMTC said the legal question was who made the invention and that issue 1(g) was not pleaded. Micron wanted Model D disclosure. The second concerned the dates by which YMTC should apply for permission to amend the patents: Micron contended for 12 November 2026 for the Trial A patents, and YMTC for 4 April 2027, with dates a couple of months later for the Trial B patent, '047. Amendments had been formulated by YMTC in parallel foreign proceedings.