Chicago Judge Delays Hytera’s Theft of Trade Secrets Criminal Trial to Sept. 30

U.S. District Judge John Tharp for Northern Illinois in Chicago granted Hytera Communications’ motion to reset its criminal trial date to Sept. 30 on allegations that Hytera and its engineers stole Motorola's trade secrets, said the judge's docket entry notification Friday (docket 1:20-cr-00688). There will be “no further extensions absent emergency circumstances,” said his notification. Hytera’s lead counsel, Steptoe’s Rachel Cannon in Chicago, asked for the postponement in a Jan. 11 motion, citing the strains of preparing for and participating in a separate “multi-week, four-defendant criminal trial” she's involved in that's scheduled to begin July 8. The Hytera trial delay also gives Tharp the chance to “consider the timing of the pending ruling” by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the civil case between Motorola and Hytera, said the motion. That ruling “could establish important precedent for this case and otherwise impact the trial’s conduct,” it said. Though no one knows when the 7th Circuit will rule in the civil appeal, waiting to begin the Hytera trial until Sept. 30 will “maximize the chances” the circuit will rule before the start of this trial, it said. Hytera’s motion to dismiss the government’s criminal indictment for failure to present evidence of trade secrets to the grand jury (see 2401220002) “is taken under advisement,” said Friday's notification. A grand jury in May 2021 returned an indictment listing multiple counts of trade secret theft against Hytera and seven of its engineers who developed digital mobile radios for Motorola in Malaysia beginning in 2004 (see 2301260060). The engineers quit Motorola in 2008 and 2009 to go to work for Hytera in Shenzhen, and the government alleges that they took Motorola’s DMR trade secrets with them when they left.