A Chinese telecommunications company has been accused of a purported secret operation aimed at stealing trade secrets belonging to Motorola.
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The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said on Monday that Hytera Communications Corp "hired Motorola Solutions employees and instructed them to steal commercial information from Motorola."
According to the ruling, Motorola and Hytera both moved from selling analog mobile radios (walkie-talkies) to digital mobile radios (“DMR”) after a 2004 announcement by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that vendors must make the transition by 2013.
Motorola began working on digital radios the same year as the FCC's ruling.
“Hundreds of Motorola employees spent years developing hardware and software solutions to design, manufacture, market, and sell DMR,” the DoJ says. “Until 2007, Motorola marketed and sold DMR products in the United States and elsewhere, including in the Northern District of Illinois.”
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Three years later, Hytera started its own commercial shift towards DMR, with sales being carried out by subsidiaries in the United States.
However, Hytera, based in Shenzhen, had hired many former Motorola employees.
“The allegations claim that, while they continued to work at Motorola, some of the employees are said to have had access to the secret commercial agreements from Motorola's internal database. Having access there, they sent this information to Hytera via email”, say the US prosecutors.
The trade secrets included hardware, radio software architecture, comparative evaluation strategies, connectivity module designs and DMR source code.
Additionally, the DoJ alleges that as of 2020, former Motorola employees were hired at higher salaries and more benefits than their former employer offered them and were asked to use Motorola’s “proprietary and commercial information to accelerate the development of DMR , train Hytera employees, and sell Hytera’s DMR products.”
In the 21-page indictment, Hytera is charged with conspiracy to steal trade secrets. Of course, within the indictment there are separate charges for each individual allegedly involved in the case.
If Hytera is found guilty, the telecommunications company could be ordered to pay up to «triple the value» of the stolen intellectual property, including the expenses incurred for the investigation.
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Hytera told Reuters it was “disappointed” by the charges, commenting that “the indictment allegedly describes activitiesofto pleading not guilty and telling its side of the story in court.”
Information source: zdnet.com
