Motorola Charges Chinese Telecom Huawei With Stealing Trade Secrets

Motorola (MOT) has filed a lawsuit against Huawei Technologies, alleging the Chinese telecom giant conspired with Motorola employees over the past decade to steal trade secrets about its cellular network technology, according to a Reuters report. The lawsuit, filed late last week in a federal court in Chicago, alleges an engineer emailed information about a Motorola transceiver and other technology to Huawei's founder, Ren Zhengfei, Reuters reported.

Within the body of the emails, the handset maker had a "Motorola Confidential Property" warning and, as a result, Zhengfei and other Huawei executives should have known the information they were receiving was proprietary, Motorola alleges in its complaint. The amended lawsuit against Huawei is related to its 2008 complaint against five former employees who allegedly shared trade secrets with Huawei reseller Lemko.

Huawei says the lawsuit is "baseless" and it will vigorously defend itself, according to a report from AFP. According to the article, the lawsuit comes as Huawei is seeking to land a deal with Sprint Nextel, which would mark its first equipment sale to a major U.S. telecom company.