Permanent-injunction decision in Hytera-Motorola Solutions case could be months away

Attorneys for Motorola Solutions and Hytera Communications this week filed a joint motion outlining a briefing schedule that proposes that a federal judge decide whether Hytera could sell much of its DMR portfolio no earlier than late May.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Norgle of the Northern District of Illinois tomorrow will hear a presentation of the joint motion, which was submitted to the court on Wednesday. Earlier this month, Norgle entered into judgment the unanimous jury verdict ordering Hytera Communications to pay Motorola Solutions $764.6 million in damages for selling DMR products that use trade secrets and copyrighted software code that were stolen from Motorola Solutions.

As part of the joint motion, Motorola Solutions intends to file motions “seeking attorneys’ fees and costs, pre- and post-judgment interest and accounting, and a permanent injunction.”

Although the joint motion does not specify the scope of the proposed permanent injunction, Motorola Solutions previously has requested that Norgle grant a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction that would prevent most of Hytera’s most popular DMR portable radios from being sold or distributed worldwide. Norgle has not issued a decision on these requests.

The joint motion outlines Hytera’s plans to file a brief that appears to be seeking a new judgment in the case or a new trial. In addition, Hytera indicates that it plans to file a separate motion “regarding any remaining affirmative equitable defenses”—a right that Hytera reserved while agreeing to the form of Norgle’s entered judgment.

For all all motions, the initial brief would be answered by an opposition brief 28 days later, with a reply brief being filed 18 days later, according to schedule proposed in the joint motion. The joint motion does not suggest how much time the parties would have to file initial briefs, but the proposed schedule—if accepted—means that Norgle likely would not receive all briefs in the matter until after mid-May.

This trial began on Nov. 7, and the transcript is almost 6,000 pages long, which is why the joint motion asks Norgle to let the attorney submit lengthier briefs than normal.

At the heart of the case is the allegation that three former Motorola employees—Samuel Chia, Y.T. Kok and G.S. Kok—accessed more than 7,000 Motorola documents prior to each of them leaving and joining Hytera shortly after in 2008. All three men declined to testify in this case, invoking their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

During the trial, Motorola Solutions attorneys asserted that these stolen documents from Motorola provided Hytera with the information necessary to build DMR radios that have competed with Motorola’s MOTOTRBO offerings for the past decade. Hytera acknowledged that the documents were stolen, but company representatives characterized the three men as “bad apples” and indicated that others in the company were not aware that information stolen from Motorola Solutions was being used in Hytera DMR products.