Michael De Vries

In February 2020, Michael De Vries, along with partner Adam Alper, won a $765 million jury verdict for client Motorola against Chinese competitor Hytera Communications, one of seven trial wins in a row the pair had achieved as of this year. Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corp. Ltd., 1:17-cv-01973 (N.D. Ill., filed March 14, 2017).

Although that win was more than four years ago, the effort to enforce the judgment has not only kept De Vries very busy this year, it also has produced an unusual court order banning all sales of infringing products around the world and another ordering the defendant company to drop related litigation in China.

The jury in 2020 agreed with De Vries that Hytera had used Motorola trade secrets to make and market digital two-way radios following the end of a distributorship deal. Instead of enjoining Hytera from selling its radios, the judge ordered it to pay Motorola a royalty on each one sold. When it didn't, De Vries moved for sanctions.

After multiple hearings, including a daylong minitrial with forensic accounting experts, the judge, in August, issued a first-of-its-kind sanction banning sales of infringing radios worldwide if the royalties weren't paid. Hytera paid -- about $56 million into an escrow account held by the court. "It showed that this coercive sanction, which never actually had to go in effect, had its intended purpose," De Vries said. "It actually caused the other side to comply with the order."

But soon after, Motorola accused Hytera of not paying royalties on a different line of radios. So, in April, the judge banned global sales. And he issued a rare anti-suit injunction requiring Hytera to take steps to withdraw from related litigation in China. For several weeks last month, the judge held daily hearings monitoring compliance, De Vries said.

The contempt proceedings involved "very complicated financial accounting issues, forensic issues, and ... issues of international law," he said early April. "I'm not aware of anything that's kind of quite like it."

Late last month, the 7th Circuit stayed the global sales ban and a $1-million-per-day fine finding that, "[u]nder the pressure of the contempt sanctions," Hytera had done enough to stop its China litigation. But it noted that the company "had amassed a record of theft of intellectual property, spoliation of evidence, and other litigation misconduct." The District Court is set to hold a hearing on the contempt allegation in August. De Vries said the case confirms that the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act can be "worldwide in nature" as long as the requirement of a U.S. nexus is satisfied.

Separately, he and Alper are set to go to trial in July, representing a Qualcomm spinoff suing a competitor for patent infringement. Omnitracs LLC v. Platform Science Inc., 3:20-cv-00958 (S.D. Cal., filed May 26, 2020).

Four weeks later, they are to defend a biomedical company against a competitor's infringement lawsuit. Ferring Pharmaceuticals Inc. v. Finch Therapeutics Group Inc., 1:21-cv-01694 (D. Del., filed Dec. 1, 2021).

-- Don DeBenedictis