Motorola Solutions has been awarded USD 764.6 million in damages in a patent infringement and trade secrets suit against rival Hytera Communications in US federal court.
The jury verdict includes USD 345.8 million in compensatory damages and USD 418.8 million in punitive damages, the maximum requested by Motorola. The company said it will seek a worldwide injunction preventing Hytera from further misappropriating its intellectual property.
The trade secret theft complaint, initially filed in March 2017, asserted that Hytera’s two-way radios and repeaters were using stolen Motorola Solutions trade secrets. The company added to its complaint in July 2018 copyright infringement allegations, asserting that Hytera also unlawfully copied Motorola Solutions’ source code. Motorola said it presented evidence at trial that demonstrated Hytera stole over confidential documents and millions of lines of source code and took steps to conceal its theft to avoid detection.
According to Motorola, Hytera admitted during the trial that it has those Motorola Solutions confidential documents in its possession and that some of its products still contain stolen Motorola Solutions source code.
Motorola has previously won patent infringement rulings against Hytera at the International Trade Commission in the US and in Germany. In 2018, the company was forced to redesign certain products in order to avoid a ban on selling in the US issued by the ITC in the case.
The same court in the jury trial, for the Northern District of Illinois, is considering another patent infringement case brought by Motorola against Hytera. A verdict is expected in late 2020 or early 2021.
