Micron and Hynix Semiconductor sought permission to present privileged documents as evidence against Rambus, the chip-design company that is suing them, at a trial in the case. A jury is being selected, with opening arguments scheduled for next week.

California Superior Court Judge James McBride in San Francisco rejected the chipmakers’ contention that the documents should be made available under the “crime-fraud” exception to the attorney-client privilege. That exception says the privilege does not apply when communications between a lawyer and a client help perpetuate a crime or fraud.

Micron and Hynix can still seek to have the documents admitted on case by case.

The two companies’ argument relied on a federal appeals court ruling last month that Rambus destroyed documents relevant to patent-infringement claims it planned to pursue against Micron and Hynix. Rambus “committed or intended to commit a fraud or crime” by destroying documents that would have had to be produced in litigation, Micron and Hynix said.

Rambus, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., designs chips for others to manufacture, and it relies on patent licensing for revenue. Rambus says Micron and Hynix drove Rambus-designed dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips out of the computer-memory market.

Rambus is seeking as much as $4.3 billion from Micron, based in Boise, and Hynix, based in South Korea. The damages would be automatically tripled to $12.9 billion under California law if Rambus wins the case, Rambus claims.

DRAM is a common component in personal computers and is Micron’s principal product.

Patrick Shields, a Los Angeles lawyer for Micron, told McBride that the appeals court “found that Rambus willfully destroyed documents,” and that there was “ample evidence” that those documents would need to be produced in litigation.

Dan Francisco, a spokesman for Micron, declined to comment on the ruling.

Earlier this week, Micron and Hynix lost their request to have the judge instruct jurors that Rambus’s document destruction in anticipation of litigation is proven. The two companies are still permitted to present document-destruction arguments at trial.