Motorola accused of allegedly stealing geolocation code from Lemko

It seems like Motorola is in a spot of trouble as Lemko has accused the company for stealing their source code knowingly. Lemko is accusing Motorola of hiring one of their engineers who created geolocation codes for cellphones, only to steal the code and attempt to “hide” it in Motorola’s Chinese offices. Lemko is also claiming that one such Motorola phone on Sprint’s network was tested with the stolen code.

It seems that back in 2006, Motorola was lacking position-determining technology, which was why they hired Lemko’s engineer due to her access to Lemko’s trade secrets. After hiring the engineer, Motorola allegedly destroyed computer files that showed the company used Lemko’s code and then promptly firing the engineer in 2008. Lemko now seeks compensation for the loss of royalties and other unspecified damages.

This lawsuit probably will not help with the Google-Motorola acquisition deal that is still pending antitrust regulator approval, especially since Google is currently facing a lawsuit from Oracle over Java patent use in Android. No word on how Motorola plans to respond to this lawsuit from Lemko.