Knowles Corp, a maker of hearing- aid components and microphones for smartphones, said a Chinese court barred it from a trial where it's the defendant in a patent dispute with Apple supplier Goertek.

The decision is the latest in a series of “highly irregular actions” that have denied the company a fair trial in Weifang, Goertek’s hometown, Knowles said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

An official at the court’s communications department, who only gave his last name, Wang, said when reached by phone the court couldn’t comment on the case. A woman who answered the phone at Goertek’s headquarters in Weifang, in eastern China, declined to comment and hang up.

The Weifang dispute is one of three that Knowles and Goertek are waging against each other in the US and China over patents for microphone technology. (Bloomberg)