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Motorola Solutions wins $765m theft and copyright lawsuit against Hytera

The ruling comes nearly three years since Motorola Solutions initially filed the complaint against Hytera.
Written by Aimee Chanthadavong, Contributor

Motorola Solutions has come out on top, winning nearly $765 million in compensation after a federal jury in Chicago found that Chinese giant Hytera Communications had stolen Motorola Solution's trade secrets and copyright infringement.

As part of the verdict, the jury awarded Motorola Solutions $345.8 million in compensatory damages and $418.8 million in punitive damages -- the maximum amounts that Motorola Solutions had requested to be awarded.

"Today's verdict is a tremendous victory for our company," Motorola Solutions chairman and CEO Greg Brown said.

"Motorola Solutions has always invested significantly in research and development to bring pioneering and beneficial technology to our customers around the world. 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."  

See also: Biden comments reignite debate over Section 230 rule protecting online platforms (TechRepublic)

Motorola Solutions said the company would now seek a worldwide injunction to prevent Hytera from further "misappropriating" the company's stolen trade secrets and infringing its copyrights.

Motorola Solutions had initially filed the trade secret theft complaint on 14 March 2017, when it alleged that Hytera's two-way radios and repeaters used stolen Motorola Solutions trade secrets. 

The company then updated its complaint on 30 July 2018 to include allegations that Hytera also unlawfully copied Motorola Solutions' source code into the source code used in Hytera products and that it was in violation of US copyright laws.

During the trial, Motorola Solutions said evidence was presented that alleged Hytera had stolen over 10,000 Motorola Solutions confidential documents, millions of lines of Motorola Solutions' highly confidential source code, and took steps to conceal its theft to avoid detection.

The battle between Motorola Solutions and Hytera is not over, however. Motorola Solutions has a separate infringement case against Hytera which is pending and is expected to proceed to trial in late 2020 or early 2021.

For that case, Motorola Solutions alleges that Hytera's two-way radios, repeaters, and dispatch systems infringe seven patents owned by Motorola Solutions and that Hytera's "redesigned" i-Series products also allegedly infringe at least four of those patents.

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