Motorola Solutions, Huawei settle dueling lawsuits
- 14 April, 2011 02:02
Long-time partners Huawei Technologies and Motorola Solutions have agreed to settle trade secrets lawsuits against each other, the companies announced.
In July 2010, Motorola added Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications technology vendor, as a defendant to a 2008 trade-secrets lawsuit. The lawsuit claimed that former employees stole trade secrets from Motorola and shared them with Huawei and mobile communications software maker Lemko, a Huawei reseller. The lawsuit accused several former Motorola employees of working for Lemko while they were still employed at Motorola.
The agreement announced Wednesday removes Huawei as a defendant in the case, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
In January, Huawei filed a lawsuit against Motorola Solutions, Motorola Mobility and Nokia Siemens Networks. The lawsuit accused the two Motorola companies, which split in January, of attempting to transfer Huawei trade secrets and technology covered by copyright to Nokia Siemens.
In July, Motorola announced a US$1.2 billion deal for Nokia Siemens to buy its telecom network equipment business.
Wednesday's agreement ends the lawsuit against Motorola Solutions and Nokia Siemens and allows Motorola to transfer its commercial agreements to Nokia Siemens for an undisclosed fee. Huawei's lawsuit was also filed in the Illinois court. The agreement does not cover Motorola Mobility. Company officials were not immediately able to answer questions regarding the status of the Motorola Mobility lawsuit.
Since 2000, Motorola has resold Huawei products under the Motorola name. Over the next 10 years, Motorola purchased $880 million in mobile network and radio technology from Huawei, the companies said in a joint press release.
Motorola regrets the disputes with Huawei, Greg Brown, the company's president and CEO, said in a statement. The companies have decided to resolve the issues a "return to our traditional relationship of confidence and trust," he said.
Huawei developed its products independently, without the use of Motorola trade secrets, Guo Ping, Huawei's executive vice president, said in a statement.
Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.
