Toshiba, whose clients include Apple Inc. and Nintendo Co., said it would transfer the joint venture back to the core Toshiba group, and remove that part of its chip unit from a sale. The company says the joint venture includes manufacturing equipment, but not the key NAND flash manufacturing processes or the plants or engineers in Japan. The move defuses Western Digital's claim that the sale of the chip unit to a third party would be a breach of its joint venture rights, Toshiba's lawyers said in a letter dated Wednesday.