Michael W. De Vries

De Vries handles complex, high-stakes cases for multinational corporations such as Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and Motorola Solutions Inc. His work includes competitor-to-competitor litigation where the client is the plaintiff.

An example is his representation of telecommunications equipment maker Motorola and its Malaysian affiliate in their patent infringement battle against China-based rival Hytera Communications. “An incredibly active and daunting matter,” De Vries said.

Its global nature is evident daily. “I wake up every morning to 50 emails, because we are litigating in countries from Germany to Australia,” he said. “And there are several proceedings ongoing in China involving Hytera’s attempts to invalidate Motorola’s patents there — so far unsuccessful.”

At the core of the case are Motorola’s claims that Hytera misappropriated its trade secrets relating to two-way radio products by stealing confidential Motorola documents.

“We allege that certain Motorola engineers left the company with thousands of documents and source code and took them to Hytera, which used them to build competing digital mobile radios,” De Vries said. Motorola Solutions Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corp. Ltd., 17-CV01972 (N.D. Ill., filed March 14, 2017).

A jury trial is set for November.

“It’s looming large on our horizon,” De Vries said of his Kirkland team, which he co-leads with colleague Adam R. Alper. In late March, U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey of Chicago nixed Hytera’s bid to postpone the trial.

The case includes claims that Hytera infringed multiple Motorola patents. In addition to the Chicago trial, there are proceedings before the International Trade Commission, antitrust claims in the U.S. and China, multiple inter partes reviews before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and Hytera’s patent infringement suit against Motorola.

Last year, the ITC found Hytera infringed Motorola’s patents and issued a ban on the importation of all of Hytera’s infringing products into the U.S. effective January 2019.

“We think we have a very clear story about the other side’s wrongful conduct,” De Vries said. He added that trade secrets cases appear to be on the increase. “We have gravitated to those cases, in part because we are able to explain the technical complexities to juries. It’s a challenge we are familiar with.”

He was part of the Kirkland team that scored wins for client Cisco Systems in its long-running IP enforcement action against Arista Networks Inc. that resulted in 2018 in a $400 million payout by Arista to Cisco.

“This is a very interesting practice,” De Vries said.

— John Roemer