China's Supreme Court Bans Infineon GaN Chips, Handing Innoscience a Landmark Patent Victory

The stakes are particularly high in the data-center market, where GaN-based power supplies are valued for their efficiency. Both Innoscience and Infineon are on Nvidia’s approved supplier list for 800V AI-rack power delivery, meaning this verdict could tilt the supply chain for the hardware underpinning artificial intelligence computing .

Inside the Case: The Details of Innoscience vs. Infineon

The legal conflict that led to this market-moving moment was a methodical, multi-court patent war that spanned over a year.

The Parties
The plaintiff, Innoscience (Suzhou) Technology Holding Co., Ltd., is a leading Chinese manufacturer of GaN-on-silicon power chips. The defendant, Infineon Technologies AG, is a Munich-based global semiconductor heavyweight and the largest power-chip maker in Europe .

The Patents at Stake
Innoscience’s original lawsuit, filed in January 2025, alleged that specific Infineon GaN power semiconductor products infringed two of its core Chinese invention patents related to GaN device technology . Before the infringement claim could proceed, Infineon had challenged the fundamental validity of those patents, triggering a crucial administrative review.

The Case’s Procedural Timeline

• January 2025: Innoscience filed patent infringement complaints at the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court .
• April 28, 2026: The Beijing Intellectual Property Court struck down Infineon’s invalidation requests, fully upholding the legal validity of Innoscience’s two core GaN patents . This cleared the way for the infringement trial to go forward with full force.
• May 27, 2026: Ruling on the infringement merits, the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court found that specified Infineon GaN products did indeed infringe Innoscience’s patents. The court issued a preliminary injunction ordering Infineon to immediately cease sales, offers to sell, and imports of the products in China, and also awarded Innoscience damages of 10 million RMB .
• June 12, 2026: China’s Supreme People’s Court delivered the final, non-appealable word. Upon review, the nation’s highest court upheld the Suzhou court’s preliminary injunction in its entirety and rejected all of Infineon’s requests for reconsideration . The ban became permanent and immediately enforceable.

What the Ban Covers
The Supreme Court’s prohibition is comprehensive. Infineon is now legally barred from selling, offering to sell, or importing the specific GaN power chip products found to be infringing into mainland China . This does not apply to Infineon’s entire product portfolio but to the specific product lines contested in the suit.

A Transcontinental Patent War with Split Decisions

The finality of the Chinese verdict provides a jolt, but it is only one half of a deeply fragmented global legal story. In a near-perfect mirror image of the Chinese outcome, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled in Infineon’s favor on May 13, 2026, less than two weeks before Suzhou’s initial verdict .

The ITC’s Full Commission affirmed that Innoscience infringed an Infineon patent and ordered import and sales bans on Innoscience’s GaN products in the United States . That ban is, however, subject to a 60-day presidential review period before it takes effect.

The result is a high-stakes legal paradox. The same two companies have effectively won patent-blocking rulings on each other in their respective home courts, carving the global GaN market into conflicting jurisdictional fortresses. For now, Innoscience controls the legal high ground in China, while Infineon holds the advantage in the U.S. market.