WASHINGTON — Longtime 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 equipment manufacturer, 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 April 13, 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 (NSN). The lawsuit accused the two Motorola companies, which split in January, of attempting to transfer Huawei trade secrets and technology covered by copyright to NSN.
In July, Motorola announced a US$1.2 billion deal for NSN to buy its telecom network equipment business.
This week’s agreement ends the lawsuit against Motorola Solutions and Nokia Siemens and allows Motorola to transfer its commercial agreements to NSN for an undisclosed fee. Huawei’s lawsuit was also filed in the Illinois court. The agreement does not cover Motorola Mobility, because Huawei’s lawsuit against it was dismissed earlier.
Since 2000, Motorola has resold Huawei products under the Motorola name. Over the next 10 years, Motorola purchased US$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 and “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.