Motorola Solutions files IP infringement lawsuits against Hytera

Motorola Solutions has filed complaints in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Hytera, alleging that Hytera’s DMR two-way radios, base stations, repeaters and dispatch systems, as well as its related commercialisation and sales activities, are infringing its patents and using “stolen Motorola Solutions trade secrets”. Hytera has said that it “…firmly believes that its business practices and operations will be fully vindicated”.

The timing of the filing appears to have been driven by new procedures or technology that have brought fresh information to light, as the trade secret lawsuit states that: “Motorola also employs robust technical protections in its systems to detect and thwart unauthorised downloads and access to its confidential and sensitive information, and that technology has improved substantially in recent years over what was available in 2008.”

Motorola Solutions claims that around that time, three of its ex-employees, G.S. Kok, Samuel Chia and Y.T. Kok, “surreptitiously downloaded and misappropriated more than 7,000 technical, marketing, sales, and legal documents related to Motorola’s digital radio and infrastructure products,” before being employed by Hytera. All three senior engineers are still working for Hytera and Motorola alleges that through them Hytera gained access to Motorola Solutions' trade secrets, which were then used to develop Hytera’s digital two-way radio products.

“Critically, many of these unlawfully-downloaded documents provided Motorola’s specific technology implementations, and other highly detailed technical information relating to critical technologies at issue in this case, providing an unlawfully obtained roadmap to Hytera about how to implement key features developed by Motorola over the course of many years,” states the trade secret lawsuit.