Motorola seeks TRO against former employee and Nokia

Former Motorola employee David Hartsfield is a 38 year old former VP in product management and helped see the wildly successful DROID through from paper to Superstar status. On December 2nd, Hartsfield jumped to Nokia to join the Finnish firms CDMA division. Motorola cried ,"Foul" because of the large number of trade secrets that Hartsfield knows and has asked the courts for a Temporary Restraining Order to keep a Nokia badge off of Hartsfield. The suit claims that. “In working on Nokia’s CDMA mobiledevices, Hartsfield could not compartmentalize his knowledge to preventhimself from using Motorola’s confidential information.”On the other hand, the former Moto employee's mouthpiece says that his client is entitled to make a living and that , "Motorola fails to point to one specific act of wrongdoing, andspecifically the disclosure of what it alleges to be confidential ortrade-secret information by Hartsfield to his current employer, andcannot specifically identify what conduct it is it wishes Hartsfield tobe restrained from.” It is not clear what the wording of the non-disclosure agreement was in Hartsfield's contract with Motorola, but it is assumed to be standard for the industry. Mr. Hartsfield said he will challenge the legitimacy of the non-disclosure agreement. Motorola has aggressively sued former employees who jumped to Apple, RIM and other competitors in the past. “We're confident we'll show the court that Mr. Hartsfield hasn’tdisclosed any confidential information to his new employer," says  Kevin O'Hagan, Mr. Hartsfield attorney, "He was not hired by Nokia forMotorola’s so-called trade secrets. He just happened to be a young,talented executive.”

source: ChicagoBusiness via Engadget

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