According to the Russian Satellite News Agency, Chinese walkie-talkie giant Hytera announced through its official website that the company received a U.S. court order that the company failed to fully comply with its anti-suit order, temporarily prohibiting the company from selling two-way radio technology products worldwide, and imposing a fine of $1 million per day.
Hytera also said that the company has withdrawn the lawsuit in the Shenzhen case, suspended the sale of two-way radio technology products as required, and has applied to the U.S. court to revoke the above order, and is currently undergoing hearings in the U.S. court. The Company will take further countermeasures to revoke the above order in the shortest possible time.
It is understood that a federal district court in Illinois recently issued a contempt ruling against Hytera, including a ban on the sale of radio products and fines. These penalties will continue until Hytera fully complies with the court order, or the court voluntarily orders the termination. In the penalty ruling document, the court said the injunction was imposed in response to Hytera's June 2022 lawsuit against Motorola in the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, seeking a Chinese court to determine that its products did not infringe Motorola's trade secrets and copyrights. The U.S. court said it instructed Hytera to halt further litigation in China on March 25, 2024, and ordered it to withdraw from the lawsuit on March 29, but that Hytera violated those requirements.
Founded in 1993, Hytera is a dedicated communication and solution provider, headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, initially entered the field of communication by manufacturing analog walkie-talkies, and after years of deep development, its business scope has expanded to law enforcement recorders, command and dispatch platforms, satellites and other fields, and is one of the few international companies in the world that can provide a full range of product lines and overall solutions.
The U.S. court's injunction against Hytera was related to a patent dispute between Hytera and Motorola. The patent dispute between the two parties dates back to 2017, when Motorola sued Hytera for poaching its senior engineers and obtaining trade secrets, and the court finally ruled in favor of Motorola, demanding that Hytera pay US$543 million in damages and pay infringement fees. However, Hytera stated that its newly designed and developed H series products did not constitute infringement.
To this day, Hytera and Motorola are still engaged in a patent dispute, which involves strong competition between two communication equipment manufacturers in overseas markets. It is reported that Motorola occupies a large export share in the European market, while Hytera's revenue in foreign markets in recent years has exceeded half of the total revenue most of the time, becoming a strong competitor of Motorola.
At a time when Hytera and Motorola are competing for overseas markets, the U.S. government prohibits Hytera from selling walkie-talkies to the world, which is undoubtedly a major blow to its overseas business dealings, which will lead to large fluctuations in stock prices and pose a lot of uncertainty to future business development. Hytera was chased and intercepted by the United States and Motorola, which confirmed from the side that their products are indeed in the lead, otherwise they would not be "taken care of".
It should be pointed out that before Hytera issued a statement that it was banned by a U.S. court, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had arrived in Shenzhen and launched a six-day visit to China. In a high-level meeting with the Chinese side, Yellen bluntly said that she wants to improve Sino-US relations. She said that the US side is willing to work with China to implement the important consensus reached at the San Francisco summit between the two heads of state, avoid misunderstandings, deepen exchanges and cooperation, properly manage differences, and promote the stable development of US-China relations.
However, judging from the series of China policies of the US government, it is clear that President Biden has not fulfilled the promises made by President Biden to the Chinese leadership. Under the theme of mutual benefit and win-win results between China and the United States, we hope that the US side can clearly recognize the general trend and jointly promote the warming of China-US relations.