Moto lawsuit claims trade secrets smuggled to China

Motorola Inc. filed a lawsuit accusing five ex-employees and a small IP-based wireless software firm of conspiring to steal trade secrets and smuggle them to China. The allegations come amid growing fears about the United States surrendering its technological leadership to foreign countries.
Indeed, intellectual property is the plutonium of an economic arms race in which some observers believe America’s high-tech prowess is under assault by China, India and other countries. That dynamic tacitly adds a political dimension to the litigation at issue.
“Defendants intentionally, knowingly, and with the intent to defraud accessed the secure, protected computers of Motorola, or caused others to access the secure, protected computers of Motorola, without authorization or exceeding authorized access, by and through non-secure means into non-secure environments, to copy, duplicate, download, upload and/or transfer Motorola’s electronic information, including Motorola’s proprietary trade secrets and confidential information, in violation of” federal law, stated the 21-page suit filed in Illinois federal courts.
In addition to claiming violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Motorola accuses the defendants of intellectual property theft and breach of fiduciary duties regarding the five former Motorola employees. Motorola said it is seeking unspecified damages, though one news report had company executives saying the allegedly stolen trade secrets were worth $600 million.
The five individuals named in the suit are former engineers (three of them software experts) of Motorola, which is based in Schaumburg, Ill. Lemko Corp., another defendant that touts itself as a provider of the world’s only cellular voice and media mesh software-defined network, is also headquartered in Schaumburg. Lemko also has offices in China and India. One defendant, Shaowei Pan, who was employed as an engineer at Motorola from July 1994 through March 2004, is currently CTO of Lemko.
“Motorola considers its intellectual property to be among the company’s most valuable assets and will act vigorously to protect it,” Motorola said in a statement.
The lawsuit states that Hanjuan Jin, who was a software engineer at Motorola, was intercepted by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials Feb. 28, 2007, while attempting to board a flight to China at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Customs agents confiscated more than 1,000 electronic and paper documents – some proprietary information and trade secrets – identified as property of Motorola that the defendants possessed in a laptop computer, external hard drives and a thumb drive. Among the documents seized, according to suit, were detailed schematics involving Motorola’s interstate communication network, architecture and network support information.
Jin, according to the lawsuit, e-mailed her Motorola supervisor that she was quitting the day before she planned to depart to China. On the same day that she e-mailed her resignation notice, the lawsuit said Jin returned to Motorola’s offices late at night, again allegedly accessing and downloading more confidential documents from the company’s internal secure internal network.
The lawsuits states that Jin was indicted by a federal grand jury in April in connection with her possession of Motorola proprietary documents and trade secrets.
Lemko denies any wrongdoing.
“Lemko is a small firm with less than 40 employees. We have never been sued before and are adamant that the allegations contained in the lawsuit brought by Motorola, as they relate to Lemko, are completely false,” the company said. “Lemko solutions do not compete with Motorola products. Over the past few years Lemko has had an excellent relationship with Motorola, and has worked closely with them on several occasions under signed non-disclosure agreements towards delivering joint solutions. Lemko has not taken, copied, used or disclosed any confidential information or trade secrets of Motorola’s at any time. Lemko is determined to get this matter clarified and resolved, and is cooperating with Motorola to end this unsubstantiated lawsuit immediately.”
Motorola has a different view Lemko’s market position, saying it regards the latter as a direct competitor and points to Lemko’s advertised trademark, “Wireless for the Next Billion People.”