Two lawsuits between United States-based Motorola Solutions Inc. and Chinese telecom provider Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. appeared to have been resolved. Motorola and Huawei issued a joint release today announcing plans to withdraw and dismiss claims against each other if specific conditions are met between the companies. Financial aspects of the deal were not disclosed.
“We regret that these disputes have occurred between our two companies,” said Greg Brown, CEO of Motorola Solutions. “Motorola values the long-standing relationship we have had with Huawei. After reviewing the facts, we decided to resolve these matters and return to our traditional relationship of confidence and trust.”
The two companies had previously partnered since 2000, as Motorola re-sold Huawei products under the Motorola brand and was allowed access to confidential technology secrets from Huawei.
However, in July 2010, Nokia Siemens Networks made a proposal for the sale of the wireless network business of Motorola for a reported $1.2 billion. In the same month, Motorola sued Huawei in a case alleging that the Chinese vendor had conspired to steal trade secrets from Motorola’s former employees.
Huawei fired back with a suit in January 2011 in a U.S. District Court, asking a court to block the sale of some of Motorola’s wireless networks to NSN, charging that the proposed sale could unfairly transfer Huawei’s intellectual property around GSM and UMTS technologies to NSN.
Huawei’s claim was based on the previous licensing relationship with Motorola, in which Motorola’s wireless networks were given confidential information about Huawei’s IP. Huawei expressed fears that Motorola would disclose the sensitive information to NSN and the Chinese telecom was able to secure a court order in February, preventing Motorola from transferring Huawei’s IP to NSN.
The negotiated agreement announced today allows Motorola to transfer the company’s commercial agreements with Huawei to NSN for a fee, and allows NSN to acquire and use confidential information from Huawei that was obtained by Motorola to run its global networks.
“Huawei provided Motorola’s experts and counsel with source code and millions of documents,” said Guo Ping, executive VP of Huawei. “Huawei acted properly and above board at all times and developed its products independently and without the use of any Motorola trade secrets. With the resolution of these cases, and the misunderstandings put to rest, Huawei is pleased to move forward with its efforts to provide innovative solutions to its customers.”
