Asia Tech Wire (Feb 28) -- A U.S. judge ruled Tuesday that a Chinese chipmaker blacklisted by the United States is not guilty in an economic espionage case.

Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. Ltd., a China-based semiconductor company, welcomed the ruling in a statement Wednesday.

"Jinhua has always operated in accordance with the law and respected intellectual property rights. All charges in the company's criminal case in the U.S. were cleared by the court," the company said.

More than five years after the U.S. Commerce Department blacklisted Jinhua over "national security" reasons, U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney in San Francisco ruled Tuesday that the Chinese firm was not guilty after a non-jury trial, Bloomberg reported.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Jinhua of stealing secrets from U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology Inc.

Chesney concluded that U.S. prosecutors had failed to prove that Jinhua had misappropriated proprietary data from Micron.

Bloomberg commented that the ruling marked "a setback for a US Justice Department crackdown on intellectual property theft by China."

Prior to the U.S. judge's ruling, Micron said late last year that it had reached a global settlement agreement with Jinhua, with both parties agreeing to globally drop their lawsuits against each other.