Kioxia Ordered to Pay $340 Billion in US Patent Lawsuit Loss... Stock Plunges 16%

Market Capitalization Halved Amid Global Semiconductor Slump

Kioxia Holdings, a Japanese NAND flash manufacturer, has lost a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States and has been ordered to pay damages of $229 million (approximately 340 billion won).

According to Japanese media outlets including NHK on July 18, US satellite communications company Viasat filed a lawsuit five years ago, claiming that some of Kioxia's flash memory products infringed its patents related to high-speed data processing technology. These patents are known to cover technology that reduces power consumption and increases the lifespan of memory semiconductors.

On July 16 (local time), a jury at a federal district court in Texas, USA, ruled in favor of the plaintiff and ordered Kioxia to pay damages.

Kioxia CI. Kioxia

Kioxia stated that it cannot accept the outcome of the trial and intends to pursue all possible legal measures, including an appeal.

On the previous day, Kioxia's stock price dropped sharply in the Japanese stock market, affected by news of the patent lawsuit loss and the global decline in major semiconductor stocks.

On the same day, Kioxia shares closed at 52,110 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, plunging 16.10%, bringing its market capitalization down to 28.5168 trillion yen (about 261.2 trillion won), less than half of the peak recorded on June 22. The Nikkei 225 index, Japan's key stock market indicator, also closed down by 2,694 points (4.0%) from the previous day at 64,141, marking the lowest level since June 8. This was the fifth largest decline in the index's history in terms of daily drop.

The Nikkei reported that concerns about Kioxia, Japan's leading semiconductor stock, possibly losing market share to China's CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies), ahead of its planned IPO, contributed to the declines in both Kioxia shares and the Nikkei index.

In addition, recent moves by Korean financial regulators to strengthen regulations on single-stock leveraged ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) appear to have curbed purchases of Japanese stocks with high correlation, further influencing the decline.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.