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文丨S1mple
Editor丨S1mple
Recently, Hytera, the leading walkie-talkie in China, can be said to have a very bad time, and the US court has made a judgment against Hytera.
According to the order of the U.S. court, Hytera is not allowed to sell any products containing walkie-talkie technology anywhere in the world until further notice.
Good guys, why are U.S. courts able to judge Hytera around the world? What the hell is going on?
A scoundrel meets a bully?
Hytera started as a walkie-talkie, before Hytera, the world's walkie-talkie market share was Kenwood and Motorola, Hytera was a small meaning for Motorola before it made its fortune.
However, it is estimated that Motorola did not expect that Hytera began to fight a price war with Motorola with government subsidies after it made its fortune.
As we all know, the first thing that ordinary consumers look at when buying something is the price tag, and then the product quality and service.
Hytera has benefited from the help of government subsidies, which has given Hytera enough confidence to fight a long-term price war with former giants such as Motorola.
This Hytera can get government subsidies because it is a domestic enterprise, but this Motorola is not, so under the price war of Hytera, Motorola has been losing and losing a lot of the domestic market.
It is also by relying on the expanding chassis that Hytera has been able to go abroad and continue to compete with Motorola in the world market.
Motorola is also worried about Hytera, which is constantly encroaching on market share, since the competition in the market is too fierce, it is better to take the path of law and patents.
As a result, Motorola has been suing Hytera since the beginning of the competition, claiming that Hytera infringed Motorola's patents and stole Motorola's trade secrets.
Is there such a thing? Actually, there is, on February 8, 2022, the Global Times reported on this matter.
The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that between 2007 and 2020, Shenzhen-based Hytera Communications recruited Motorola employees in Malaysia to steal proprietary commercial data about the radio, commonly known as "walkie-talkies."
The indictment alleges that Hytera offered better wages and benefits in exchange for trade secrets in the hands of the former Motorola employees during this period.
How did Hytera respond to the U.S. Department of Justice's allegations?
Hytera's legal team was "disappointed" by the accusations and "politely rejected them," noting that Hytera rejected but did not deny it.
Hytera itself said that it was an activity of former Motorola employees that took place in Malaysia more than a decade ago, and that it wanted to defend its innocence.
In fact, to put it bluntly, Hytera does have such a thing, but Hytera does not want to be punished for this incident.
In addition to this incident, the lawsuit between Hytera and Motorola has not stopped, and the point that Motorola sued Hytera is that Hytera infringes and steals trade secrets.
In 2020, the U.S. court also tried the case, and the final judgment resulted in a fine of more than 300 million yuan and a punitive fine of more than 400 million yuan.
Note that the unit here is the US dollar, which is converted into more than 5 billion yuan.
You must know that Hytera's market value is only more than 8 billion, and if you really want to pay this fine, it is better to sell the company directly.
However, Hytera's statement is also very chicken, that is, Hytera does not deny that there was infringement of past products, but Hytera also said that there is no infringement of their new products.
And the penalty is too much, with a fine of more than 5 billion yuan, even if Hytera is emptied out, they can't take out so much cash.
In this regard, Hytera also proposed a set of plans, that is, each device, pay a certain patent fee every quarter, and then deposit it in the court escrow account, if Hytera wins the lawsuit, the full amount will be returned, if Hytera loses the lawsuit, the money will go to Motorola.
The U.S. court also agreed to this plan, but Hytera did not send money into the account, and was caught by Motorola's legal counsel.
The previous judgment of the US court was to allow Hytera to remove those infringing products from the shelves and then pay a fine, but the fine was too much, and Hytera thought of suing Motorola for infringement in the domestic court.
In this way, after Hytera wins the domestic lawsuit, it can negotiate a settlement with Motorola, and finally avoid the huge fine.
As a result, the U.S. court made another judgment against Hytera's behavior, that is, contempt of court, to put it bluntly, the judgment of the U.S. court cannot be changed by the judgment of the Chinese court.
Because of the development of domestic mobile phone communications, walkie-talkies are not big in the domestic market, so Hytera's market is mainly abroad.
Now that it has done this, Hytera has to start removing its products from the shelves, and then appeal against the latest judgment of the US court.
The deep meaning behind the Hytera case
In fact, one of the reasons for this kind of thing is that Hytera does have infringements, and the other is the problem of Hytera's products and service objects.
Who is the target of Hytera's products and services? One is the private network, and the other is the government.
Hytera has its own technological advantages, for example, Hytera's voice narrowband technology is in a leading position in the industry.
However, it is helpless that Hytera's own pigtails were caught by the United States and Motorola, which led to Hytera having to do things according to the United States.
The best outcome that Hytera can achieve now is to settle with Motorola, and if a settlement is reached, there may be room for maneuver in that huge fine.
Although the United States has not stolen the technology of other countries, there is no way, and now the United States is too powerful in the world, resulting in many patent cases becoming headless lawsuits.
The reason why Hytera is now being targeted by the United States is that, on the one hand, Hytera does have some problems, and on the other hand, because Hytera's business scope has affected the surveillance and revenue of the United States.
After all, Hytera still has a great influence in the private network market around the world, and many of them are projects aimed at the government and government public departments.
Patents are an opening, an opening that allows the United States to target Hytera, and now Hytera has to submit to the United States, in fact, there are reasons for this.
Although Hytera's technology has now gotten rid of Motorola's shadow, it is an objective fact that Hytera failed to comply with the 2020 U.S. court judgment.
Therefore, this hurdle is quite difficult for Hytera.
Source: Global Times: "The Latest Crackdown! Hytera Accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of Conspiring with Former Motorola Employees to Steal Technology"
Hytera was sentenced to compensate Motorola $765 million --. intellectual property rights--People's Daily Online
The U.S. court rejected Motorola's motion to ban the sale of Hytera's products in the lawsuit
Suddenly! The communication faucet was indicted by a U.S. court: the global ban on sales, a daily fine of $1 million! The product has been removed from the shelves of JD.com and Tmall.Daily Economic News