Huawei & Motorola End Trade Secrets Dispute

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and Motorola Solutions Inc. (NYSE: MSI) said Wednesday that they have ended the legal dispute over wireless trade secrets, paving the way for Nokia Networks to complete its planned buyout of Motorola's wireless unit. (See Motorola Solutions & Huawei End NSN Legal Dispute.)

Separately, Motorola and NSN have just announced that they have reached a new price of $975 million for the wireless networking unit. NSN had originally said it would pay $1.2 billion for the unit. (See NSN, Moto Agree on New Takeover Price.)

In January, Huawei filed a lawsuit against Motorola in a bid to prevent it from "from illegally transferring Huawei's intellectual property (IP) to Nokia Siemens Networks." The Chinese networking giant had claimed that Motorola's products included Huawei IP that was incorporated during the 10 years the two were mobile product development partners.

The pair issued a joint statement Wednesday saying that all pending ligation has been dropped. Under the terms of the new agreement, Motorola Solutions agrees to transfer its commercial agreements with Huawei to NSN for a fee, allowing NSN to receive and use "Huawei confidential information to service the networks Motorola deployed worldwide using Huawei’s products and technologies."

“We regret that these disputes have occurred between our two companies. Motorola Solutions 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. I am pleased that we can again focus on having a cooperative and productive relationship,” said Greg Brown, president and CEO of Motorola Solutions, in the release.

Why this matters
A major stumbling block to the completion of NSN's takeover of Motorola's wireless networking unit has been lifted with this agreement. NSN and Motorola have just agreed to a new, lower price for the deal of $975 million and are targeting completion before the end of the month. Antitrust approval from Chinese authorities is still pending.For more
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— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile