Huawei is suing Motorola for the illegal transfer of Huawei’s intellectual property over to Nokia Siemens Network. In the summer of last year, Nokia Siemens Network acquired Motorola’s wireless network business, and possibly Huawei’s technologies as well. Since 2000, Huawei and Motorola had a working partnership “in the radio access network and core network businesses, where Motorola has resold Huawei wireless network products to customers under the Motorola name,” according to Huawei.
Apparently, Motorola didn’t do enough to ensure that Huawei’s intellectual property was protected when it transferred its wireless network business over to Nokia Siemens Network.
Here is what Huawei says in its statement:
Huawei Technologies, Co., Ltd. (“Huawei”) today asked a U.S. District Court to prevent Motorola from illegally transferring Huawei’s intellectual property (IP) to Nokia Siemens Networks (“NSN”). Huawei took this action as NSN seeks to complete its US$1.2 billion acquisition of Motorola’s wireless network business. Since 2000, Huawei and Motorola have had a cooperative relationship in the radio access network and core network businesses, where Motorola has resold Huawei wireless network products to customers under the Motorola name. During this period, Motorola was provided with products and confidential Huawei IP developed by Huawei’s team of more than 10,000 engineers. Since the July 2010 announcement by NSN of its purchase of Motorola’s wireless network business, Huawei has tried to ensure that Motorola does not transfer this confidential information to NSN. Motorola, however, has not responded with assurances that it will prevent disclosure of that information to NSN. If Huawei’s proprietary commercial property and information is transferred to a third party, Huawei will suffer irreparable commercial damage. Motorola’s failure to adopt measures sufficient to ensure that Huawei’s proprietary information remains confidential has compelled the company to file for the appropriate legal protection of its rights. As a global technology leader with a rich IP and patent portfolio, Huawei respects the rights of intellectual property holders and is equally committed to the protection of its own innovations and intellectual property. Nearly half of Huawei’s 100,000 plus employees are engaged in research and development and Huawei allocates an average of 10% of all revenues to R&D annually. By the end of 2010, Huawei had applied for 49,040 essential patents on a global basis.
Now we’ll just have to wait and see how this settles.
[Via: Huawei (PDF link)]