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19 October 2021CopyrightMuireann Bolger

Motorola attorneys secure $34m fees in win against Hytera

Attorneys representing Motorola have secured $34.2 million in fees as part of the tech company in a multi million dollar victory over Hytera in a dispute over radio IP.

US District Judge Charles Norgle handed down the decision in favour of Motorola’s motion on Friday, October 15, at the Northern District Court for the District of Illinois.

Kirkland & Ellis acted as Motorola’s legal counsel.

The dispute arose when Motorola sued Hytera for trade-secret misappropriation and copyright infringement in 2017 and this decision is the latest development following several lawsuits filed by the two parties worldwide.

According to Motorola’s 2017 complaint, the Chinese radio manufacturer used its trade secrets to produce its products, and stole 10,000 confidential documents and millions of lines of code.

Hytera didn't dispute that its products contain stolen trade secrets, and conceded that it has Motorola's confidential documents  and that its products contain stolen source code. But the Chinese company countered that Motorola had delayed too long after finding out about the theft to file the lawsuit.

A jury found for Motorola and awarded it more than $760 million in February 2020, which the district court later reduced to approximately $543 million.

Following this verdict, both sides then filed post-trial motions, and Hytera contended that the requested hourly attorney fees of $555 to $1,565 were unreasonable. But last week, the district court rejected this argument.

Greg Brown, chairman and CEO at Motorola Solutions welcomed the company’s 2020 win against Hytera as a tremendous victory in a statement. “Motorola Solutions has always invested significantly in research and development to bring pioneering and beneficial technology to our customers around the world,” he said.

“In contrast, Hytera was simply profiting off of the hard work and innovation of our world-class engineers. The jury’s verdict validates our global litigation against Hytera by definitively affirming that stealing trade secrets and source code will not be tolerated.”

A Hytera spokesperson said the company was disappointed in the jury’s decision, arguing that the ruling was “unsupported” by evidence.

“Hytera has enhanced its corporate governance and added new policies and procedures related to IP and the onboarding of new employees. In addition, Hytera is engaged in an ongoing process of removing the affected source code from the products at issue and has been rolling out updated software to the marketplace,” said the statement.

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