Micron agreed to license Netlist’s worldwide patent portfolio for five years and settle their identified pending proceedings. The agreement followed a Texas jury’s $445 million award, even as Netlist warned that appeals of Patent Trial and Appeal Board rulings could affect its ability to collect it.
On October 5, 2026, Micron Technology agreed to pay Netlist $600 million in license fees over five years after appealing a $445 million Texas verdict. Netlist, based in Irvine, California, disclosed the deal in its October 6 Form 8-K, which describes a Settlement and Release Agreement that “settles and mutually releases all pending legal proceedings between the Company and Micron identified therein.” A companion patent license calls for $30 million per quarter for 20 quarters. The agreement answers what the companies will do with their dispute; the court dockets must still show how the pending cases end.
The trial had given Netlist a formidable number. In May 2024, a jury in the Eastern District of Texas found that Micron willfully infringed two Netlist patents, the ’912 and the ’417, and awarded $445 million. The court entered final judgment that July. In June 2025 it denied Micron’s motions for judgment as a matter of law on willfulness, infringement and damages, along with its motion for a new trial. Micron then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
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That account comes from Netlist’s August 11 Form 10-Q, which identifies the Texas case as No. 2:22-cv-00294 and the appeal as No. 2025-1936. The same filing carried the warning that kept the verdict from being a certain recovery: “The collectability of the damages award may be affected by the outcomes of pending appeals of final written decisions in the respective Inter Partes Reviews of the two patents.”
That second fight ran at the patent office. Samsung and Micron each petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board for inter partes review of both trial patents. Micron filed its ’912 petition in November 2022, less than four months after Netlist sued it in Texas over that patent. According to the Form 10-Q, the board found Claim 16 of the ’912 patent unpatentable in April 2024, a month before trial. It found all challenged claims of the ’417 patent unpatentable that July. Netlist appealed both decisions. The jury’s infringement and damages findings stood in the district court, but Netlist’s own filing described a separate fight over whether the patent claims behind the award would survive.
The October agreement reaches beyond the two trial patents. Micron receives a worldwide, nonexclusive license to Netlist’s entire worldwide patent portfolio for five years. The fee runs from the fourth quarter of 2026 through the third quarter of 2031. The Form 8-K describes the $600 million as license fees, paid in 20 quarterly installments; it does not mention the $445 million verdict at all.
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Netlist’s Exhibit 99.1 announcement says the licensed portfolio includes patents covering server memory modules and High Bandwidth Memory technologies. C.K. Hong, Netlist’s chief executive, said the agreement “further validates the value of our AI memory technologies.” That is his assessment of the deal. The Form 8-K states the narrower transaction facts: a portfolio license, a mutual release of identified pending proceedings and quarterly fees.
Micron also bought 10 million Netlist shares for $1 million under a separate securities purchase agreement. The Form 8-K says restrictions on transferring those shares release in portions over five anniversaries. The stock purchase adds another part to the bargain, but its $1 million price is separate from the $600 million in license fees.
Analysis: the filings put Micron’s license fees at $120 million a year for five years under a worldwide license to Netlist’s entire portfolio; a separate agreement releases identified pending proceedings. Netlist, which had already settled with Samsung, warned in August that any recovery in its Micron litigation “may be less than the amounts awarded or may not be realized,” citing “negotiated resolution, appeals, post-trial proceedings, patent office proceedings or other developments.” It now has Micron’s commitment to pay $30 million a quarter.
The pre-settlement Form 10-Q shows why the release mattered outside the verdict appeal. Netlist had brought other patent infringement claims against Micron in the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas. Micron had sought declarations of noninfringement in the District of Delaware. In Idaho state court, Micron filed claims alleging that Netlist had made bad-faith assertions of patent infringement. Those Idaho allegations were claims by Micron, not findings against Netlist.
The proceedings also put each side under a different kind of pressure. Netlist had a jury award and a final judgment that had survived Micron’s post-trial motions in Texas, but its filing warned that appeals and patent-office proceedings could reduce or prevent recovery. Micron had an appeal and favorable patent-office decisions to press, while litigation between the companies continued in several venues. The Form 8-K reports a mutual release across the pending proceedings identified in the agreement; it does not list them or assign a price to any individual case.
Netlist’s August filing said the Federal Circuit had set September 9 arguments in the verdict appeal and in patent-office appeals involving both trial patents. Netlist’s October filings do not say whether those arguments went forward. The signed settlement sets the new scoreboard: the jury said $445 million, and the companies signed for $600 million in license fees over five years, a $1 million stock purchase and a release of identified pending proceedings. The first $30 million fee covers the fourth quarter of 2026. The October filings do not state what the settlement does to Federal Circuit No. 2025-1936, Micron’s appeal of the Texas verdict.
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