Hytera fires back at Motorola with competition lawsuit
Radio manufacturer Hytera Communications has accused Motorola Solutions of engaging in anti-competitive practices in the latest twist in the war between the two companies.
Yesterday, December 4, Hytera filed a suit in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey, claiming that Motorola was “deliberately and actively foreclosing competition” in land mobile radio communications systems.
It follows several patent lawsuits filed by the two parties.
Hytera believes that Motorola is preventing it from competing in the US marketplace for two-way radios.
Tom Wineland, director of sales for Hytera Communications America (West), said: “Motorola is forcing US customers to pay artificially high prices for critical communications. It can do this because of its long-standing monopoly.”
To maintain its monopoly, Motorola is allegedly forcing dealers to drop Hytera’s two-way radios and leveraging its dominance of the “US public safety market” to impede the adoption of less expensive technologies.
Hytera also claimed that Motorola has been engaging in a “serial pattern of sham litigation” and regulatory actions to impede Hytera, by raising costs and sowing anxiety in the market.
The first shots were fired in March, when Motorola accused Hytera of patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets which had enabled Hytera to “compete unfairly by bypassing investment in innovation”.
Motorola also filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission that month, alleging infringement of patents covering two-way radio equipment systems and related software.
In April, Motorola sued Hytera in Germany for infringing similar technology. July saw Motorola taking on Hytera in Australia.
Hytera returned fire at the US District Court for the District Court of Ohio at the end of August, accusing Motorola of infringing three patents in the “intelligent audio” range of devices, which adjust volume based on background noise and other variables.
A spokesperson for Motorola Solutions told WIPR: "We believe Hytera's complaint is without merit and a clear attempt to shift attention away from the heart of the dispute—Hytera's brazen theft of our trade secrets and wilful infringement of our patents."
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