Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd.

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJuly 2, 2024
Docket22-2413
StatusPublished

This text of Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd. (Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd., (7th Cir. 2024).

Opinion

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ Nos. 22-2370 & 22-2413 MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS, INC. and MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS MALAYSIA SDN. BHD., Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants,

v.

HYTERA COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION LTD., Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee. ____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:17-cv-01973 — Charles R. Norgle, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED DECEMBER 5, 2023 — DECIDED JULY 2, 2024 ____________________

Before HAMILTON, BRENNAN, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. This case concerns a large and blatant theft of trade secrets. Plaintiff Motorola and defendant Hytera compete globally in the market for two-way radio sys- tems. Motorola spent years and tens of millions of dollars de- veloping trade secrets embodied in its line of high-end digital mobile radio (DMR) products. For a brief period in the early 2 Nos. 22-2370 & 22-2413

2000s, Hytera struggled to overcome technical challenges to develop its own competing DMR products. After failing for years, Hytera hatched a new plan: “leap- frog Motorola” by stealing its trade secrets. Hytera, headquar- tered in China, poached three engineers from Motorola in Ma- laysia, offering them high-paying jobs in exchange for Motorola’s proprietary information. Before those engineers left Motorola, and acting at Hytera’s direction, they down- loaded thousands of documents and computer files contain- ing Motorola’s trade secrets and copyrighted source code. Re- lying on that stolen material, between 2010 and 2014, Hytera launched a line of DMR radios that were functionally indis- tinguishable from Motorola’s DMR radios. Hytera sold these professional-tier radios containing Motorola’s confidential and proprietary technology for years in the United States and abroad. In 2017, Motorola sued Hytera for copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation. After three and a half months of trial, the jury found that Hytera had violated both the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) and the Copy- right Act. The jury awarded compensatory damages under the Copyright Act and both compensatory and punitive dam- ages under the DTSA for a total award of $764.6 million. The district court later reduced the award to $543.7 million and denied Motorola’s request for a permanent injunction. Hytera has appealed, and Motorola has cross-appealed. The most startling fact about these appeals is that Hytera’s liability is not at issue. It concedes that it engaged in the bla- tant theft of trade secrets and copying of proprietary com- puter code. Instead, Hytera raises several challenges only to the damages awards under the Copyright Act and the DTSA. Nos. 22-2370 & 22-2413 3

As we explain below, we must remand for the district court to recalculate copyright damages, which will need to be reduced substantially from the district court’s original award of $136.3 million. On the DTSA damages, we affirm the district court’s award of $135.8 million in compensatory damages and $271.6 million in punitive damages. On Motorola’s cross-appeal, we find that the district court erred in denying Motorola’s motion for reconsideration of the denial of permanent injunctive relief. On remand, the district court will need to reconsider the issue of permanent injunc- tive relief. We continue to commend both district judges (Judge Norgle and, after his retirement, Judge Pacold) who have presided over this case for their careful handling of this complex and sprawling case. We remain confident of the court’s ability to resolve the remaining issues on remand. I. Factual and Procedural History A. Factual History Motorola and Hytera both design, manufacture, and sell two-way radios and related products worldwide. They are the two main competitors in this global market. They rely on the same underlying software protocols to enable their radios to communicate across brands, but each manufacturer en- hances its radios by adding unique hardware and software features. From the late 1980s through the early 2000s, Motorola worked to develop and patent the technology un- derlying these standard software protocols, known as “digital mobile radio” or DMR.1

1 Citations to the record are abbreviated as follows: “Dkt.” refers to

the district court docket entries; “A” refers to the required appendix at the 4 Nos. 22-2370 & 22-2413

Hytera manufactures and sells different tiers of two-way DMR radios, including commercial and professional. The products at issue in this case are Hytera’s professional-tier ra- dios, used by governments and public-safety entities around the world. They sell at premium prices compared to Hytera’s non-infringing commercial-tier radios. In 2006, as internal Hytera documents show, Hytera was struggling to develop its own DMR radios comparable to Motorola’s. Instead of con- tinuing to compete fairly, Hytera decided to steal Motorola’s trade secrets and copyrighted code. Hytera’s goal was to “leapfrog Motorola” to become the world’s preeminent pro- vider of DMR radios. In June 2007, the president and CEO of Hytera, Chen Qingzhou, reached out to an engineer who worked for Motorola in Malaysia, G.S. Kok, claiming that Hytera hoped to set up a potential research-and-development center in Ma- laysia. The two negotiated Kok’s departure from Motorola. Hytera offered Kok 600,000 shares of Hytera stock as compen- sation, worth roughly $2.5 million when Hytera’s stock later went public. Internal Hytera emails show that once Kok joined Hytera, he facilitated the hiring of two additional Motorola engineers in Malaysia, Y.T. Kok and Sam Chia. Y.T. Kok initially maintained his employment with Motorola while surreptitiously also working for Hytera. In June 2008, shortly after Y.T. Kok had secretly been added to Hytera’s payroll, he downloaded over a hundred Motorola documents in response to specific requests from Hytera about unresolved issues with its own DMR radios. Evidence at trial showed that Y.T. Kok and Chia downloaded more than 10,000 technical

end of Hytera’s opening brief; and “SA” refers to the supplemental appen- dix at the end of Motorola’s response brief. Nos. 22-2370 & 22-2413 5

documents from Motorola’s secure ClearCase and COMPASS databases and brought them to Hytera. At the time of trial, Motorola argued, more than 1,600 of those documents re- mained in Hytera’s possession. The stolen files included Motorola’s source code for its DMR radio project. Segments of the stolen code were later directly inserted into Hytera’s products. Proof of the theft and copying included the fact that minor coding errors in Motorola’s code appeared in exactly the same spots in Hytera’s code. Hytera’s employees understood that their use of Motorola’s copyrighted code and trade secrets was unlawful. At times, Hytera modified Motorola’s code to conceal its illicit origins. Hytera’s engineers also circulated Motorola’s code and technical documents, sometimes with the Motorola logo replaced by a Hytera logo, but other times still labeled with Motorola’s logo. Between 2010 and 2014, Hytera launched a line of DMR radios that were, as described at trial, functionally indistin- guishable from the DMR radios developed and sold by Motorola. For years, Hytera sold these professional-tier radios containing Motorola’s confidential and proprietary technol- ogy worldwide, including in the United States. Hytera also regularly attended trade shows in the United States where it marketed and demonstrated its infringing products to cus- tomers from around the world. According to Motorola, Hyt- era has continued to sell products using Motorola’s misappro- priated trade secrets and copyrighted code up to the present day. 6 Nos. 22-2370 & 22-2413

B. Procedural History This brings us to the present lawsuit.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Abner v. Kansas City Southern Railroad
513 F.3d 154 (Fifth Circuit, 2008)
Findlay v. McAllister
113 U.S. 104 (Supreme Court, 1885)
Sheldon v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp.
309 U.S. 390 (Supreme Court, 1940)
Morissette v. United States
342 U.S. 246 (Supreme Court, 1952)
Yates v. United States
354 U.S. 298 (Supreme Court, 1957)
Standard Oil Co. of Cal. v. United States
429 U.S. 17 (Supreme Court, 1976)
Rodriguez v. United States
480 U.S. 522 (Supreme Court, 1987)
BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore
517 U.S. 559 (Supreme Court, 1996)
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance v. Campbell
538 U.S. 408 (Supreme Court, 2003)
Microsoft Corp. v. At&t Corp.
550 U.S. 437 (Supreme Court, 2007)
Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc.
557 U.S. 167 (Supreme Court, 2009)
Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd.
561 U.S. 247 (Supreme Court, 2010)
OCI Wyoming, L.P. v. PacifiCorp
479 F.3d 1199 (Tenth Circuit, 2007)
Data General Corp. v. Grumman Systems Support Corp.
36 F.3d 1147 (First Circuit, 1994)
Bruce v. Weekly World News, Inc.
310 F.3d 25 (First Circuit, 2002)
Amado v. Microsoft Corp.
517 F.3d 1353 (Federal Circuit, 2008)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/motorola-solutions-inc-v-hytera-communications-corporation-ltd-ca7-2024.