Samsara accuses rival Motive of stealing trade secrets in new lawsuit

Nov 13 - Internet-of-things company Samsara (IOT.N) escalated its legal dispute with competitor Motive Technologies on Wednesday, filing a new lawsuit in California state court accusing Motive and its CEO Shoaib Makani of orchestrating a "massive, years-long scheme of trade secret theft" related to Samsara's business.

 

Motive allegedly solicited confidential information from former Samsara employees to create competing dashcams and vehicle fleet management technology, saving it "years of research and development" according to a copy of the complaint provided by Samsara.

 

Samsara filed separate lawsuits against Motive in Delaware federal court and at the U.S. International Trade Commission earlier this year for allegedly infringing its patents. Motive has countered with its own lawsuit in California accusing Samsara of copying its technology.

 

Motive said in a statement that Samsara's new lawsuit was "yet another attempt to distract from the fact that Motive delivers superior AI technology and value to customers." The company noted an ITC office's finding, made public on Tuesday, that Samsara's case there was unlikely to succeed.

 

Samsara said in a statement that it is "committed to defending our company's innovation and the hard work of our dedicated employees."

 

San Francisco-based Samsara, which specializes in dashcams and fleet-management products, went public in 2021 with venture capital backing from Andreessen Horowitz. Its rival Motive, also based in San Francisco, rebranded from KeepTruckin in 2022.

 

Samsara said it learned from the ITC case that Motive possessed documents summarizing confidential Samsara business strategies and other secret information. According to the new lawsuit, the ITC case also revealed orders from Makani for Motive employees to "interview the former Samsara employees that they had hired, get as much information about Samsara and its business operations and its products and features as they could" and "use that information to help Motive sell products."

 

Samsara asked the court for an unspecified amount of monetary damages and court orders barring Motive from misusing its trade secrets.

 

The case is Samsara Inc v. Motive Technologies Inc, Superior Court of the State of California for the County of San Francisco.