INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Haslam managed to take scandalous accusations against one of China’s largest companies and turn them on their head, ultimately forcing technology giant Motorola Solutions Inc. to pay licensing fees to his client, Huawei Technologies.

In 2008 Motorola filed a federal suit in Chicago that accused its wireless network rival Lemko Corp. of conspiring to misappropriate trade secrets. By July 2010 Motorola added its former partner, Huawei, as a defendant, alleging that Huawei conspired to funnel Motorola’s trade secrets to Lemko.

Huawei dug in its heels and with Haslam and the help of Stan Young, his Silicon Valley partner at Cov-

ington, mounted an aggressive defense. The com-pany produced more than 90 million lines of

source code from several products to prove it used no Motorola code.

As the case progressed, Motorola announced plans to sell its wireless networks business to Nokia Siemens Networks for $1.2 billion. This would involve the transfer of some of Huawei’s proprietary information to rival Nokia, against Huawei’s interest. Huawei coun-tersued in February 2011 and won a preliminary injunction from U.S. District Judge Sharon Coleman Johnson in Chicago blocking Motorola’s transfer of the information to Nokia. Haslam pressed his client’s fight for its intellectual property rights and showed the legitimacy of its claim to licensing fees.

Last April, Motorola and Huawei reached a confi-dential joint settlement of both parties’ claims; Motor-ola paid fees to Huawei, paving the way to close its wireless deal with Nokia.

ROBERT T. HASLAM

Covington & Burling LLPRedwood Shores

California Lawyer Attorney of the YearRobert T. Haslam

The 2012 CLAY Awards originally published in the March 2012 issue of California Lawyer. Reprinted with permission. ©2012 Daily Journal Corporation, San Francisco, California