A Chinese telecom firm has pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from Motorola, facing hefty fines and restitution.
Chicago: So, there’s this Chinese telecom company, Hytera, that just pleaded guilty in court for stealing tech secrets from Motorola. They were after the digital tech used in walkie-talkies that cops and firefighters rely on.
Now, they’re looking at a fine of up to $60 million when they get sentenced on November 6. Plus, they’ll have to pay Motorola some restitution, though the amount isn’t clear yet.
Prosecutors say Hytera was luring Motorola employees with big paychecks and stock options. Those engineers ended up stealing documents and source code for Hytera, which is based in Shenzhen, China.
Hytera then created their own radio products, some of which made their way to Illinois. This all kicked off after the FCC said in 2008 that radio makers needed to switch from analog to digital radios. Hytera was lagging behind Motorola in this shift.
Back in 2007, Hytera had a meeting where they made it clear that beating Motorola in the mobile radio market was a top priority. They were serious about it.
The first Motorola employee they snagged was G.K. Kok, who’s now waiting for his own sentencing after pleading guilty. They boosted his salary by 75% to $165,000 and threw in 600,000 stock options. In return, he helped recruit other Motorola engineers.
Hytera sold the radio products made with the stolen tech all over the world until 2019. In 2020, a jury in Chicago hit them with a $764 million judgment in a lawsuit related to this whole mess, but that was later reduced to $543 million.
Then, just this past July, a federal appeals court upheld $407 million in damages against Hytera, calling it a “large and blatant theft of trade secrets.” They did tell the district court to cut down the $136 million awarded for separate copyright damages, though.
