US trade agency opens Netlist patent probe into Samsung and four tech firms

The US International Trade Commission launched an investigation into whether Samsung and four other tech companies are infringing Netlist’s memory-chip patents. The probe reaches into the same high bandwidth memory now driving the AI boom.

The commission agreed that the case begins on July 16, 2026. The investigation names Google, NVIDIA, Broadcom, and Super Micro Computer, in addition to Samsung Electronics. The patents at issue are those that Netlist associates with HBM and DDR5 products. Both memory formats are necessary for servers that run AI workloads.

Netlist widens its patent fight at the ITC

This is Netlist’s second case before the commission. Instead of relying on a single complaint, Netlist is expanding its campaign to make things right.

The ITC is important because of the remedies it provides. It can’t award money damages like a district court can; however, it can stop the import of goods found to violate a valid US patent.

A direct threat to the flow of goods is an exclusion order for companies that ship memory, accelerators, and servers from other countries into the United States. That’s why patent holders are going to the ITC more and more for memory disputes.

The chips mentioned in the complaint are the same ones that are driving record results across the memory industry. In early July, Samsung projected an operating profit of ~89.4 trillion Korean won for the second quarter. According to Cryptopolitan’s report on the company’s earnings guidance, this is ~19 times what it earned in the same period last year. Samsung cited strong demand for AI memory, such as HBM, server DRAM, and NAND flash.

That demand makes the ITC’s battle over HBM and DDR5 all the more important. As hyperscale cloud operators compete to build AI infrastructure, supply of high-bandwidth memory has become constrained. Manufacturers have received higher prices as a result. A patent dispute involving those specific product lines lands in a market where every unit of HBM has already been reserved.

A lot of the world’s best memory for AI servers is made by SK Hynix, a South Korean competitor of Samsung, and Micron. Investors look at these three as a sign of the AI chip market as a whole. Cryptopolitan said that when Korean memory stocks go down, it usually affects other memory stocks in the same industry, like Micron, as well as technology and semiconductor funds in general.