On April 2, 2024, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, issued an order enjoining China-based Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd., and all of its officers, agents, servants, employees, affiliates, subsidiaries, and distributors and resellers of any type, and all those persons in active concert or participation in any of them who receive actual notice of the order by personal service or otherwise, from performing any of the following actions: offering to sell, selling, importing, exporting, or otherwise distributing anywhere in the world any Two-Way Radio Products, with specific mention to TETRA products. The District Court’s injunction was temporary in nature and was intended to coerce Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd to withdraw a lawsuit in China against Motorola. Hytera appealed the District Court order to withdraw the Chinese lawsuit to the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and requested a stay of the sales injunction pending the appeal.
Therefore, PowerTrunk Inc., as an indirect Hytera Communications subsidiary, pursuant to the aforementioned injunction that was noticed to it through internal corporate channels, and Article 65(d) of the Federal Rules for Civil Procedure, observed the Court Order immediately, even though PowerTrunk Inc. is not a party to the Motorola Solutions vs Hytera Communications DMR lawsuit, nor has PowerTrunk ever offered or sold any products infringing Motorola Solutions’ intellectual property rights. For clarity, the TETRA products offered by PowerTrunk, designed and manufactured at European locations by Spain-based Teltronic S.A.U. and UK-based Sepura Ltd. were not the subject of the lawsuits with Motorola and do NOT use any Motorola Solutions’ trade secrets or infringe any Motorola Solutions’ rights.
PowerTrunk Inc., through a Letter of Assurance (LOA) in force today, is authorized by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to sell its products designed and manufactured at European locations to U.S. customers without restrictions, including federal agencies and customers receiving federal funds. As a matter of fact, PowerTrunk’s multimode 700/800 MHz TETRA-P25 subscribers appear on the DHS website as Grant-Eligible (https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/p25-cap/powertrunk-htt-500-2), meaning that they can be legally used by any public safety organization or first responder receiving federal funds in the United States. In turn, PowerTrunk holds valid FCC type acceptance certificates for all the products it offers and supplies.
On April 16, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit issued an Order staying the sales injunction on Hytera Communications Corporation Ltd., and thus PowerTrunk resumed normal operation immediately. Given the nature of the root cause that kept the injunction in place for 14 days (withdrawal of the Chinese lawsuit), and that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of Hytera, PowerTrunk believes that it is extremely unlikely that another injunction would be issued for the same reason in the future as the 7th Circuit has rejected Motorola Solutions’ arguments that the injunction should remain in place.
“We deem necessary to clarify that PowerTrunk is not a party to the Motorola vs Hytera DMR lawsuit, that PowerTrunk abides by the U.S. court orders scrupulously, whether favorable or unfavorable, and that PowerTrunk is authorized by the U.S. Government to sell its Two-Way Radio Products to U.S. customers without restrictions. This clarification is necessary in order to mitigate the impact of the misinformation spread by other parties with the intention of undermining PowerTrunk’s reputation and business expectations”, said Jose Martin, PowerTrunk President and CEO.