Has LPR Technology Been Monopolized?

The DRN Non-Compete Lawsuit – A LIVE ATI Show

LIVE Broadcast

Thursday December 5^th – 8pm EST – 5pm PST

Back on a rainy night in Texas in 2008, the repossession industry was first introduced to the revolutionary promise of license plate technology (LPR). This technology promised to revolutionize the future. Fast forward fourteen years, and this promise has turned sour for some who when desiring to change LPR providers find themselves trapped in a non-competition clause in their contracts. Join me and Jay at ATI Auto Business for a discussion of a very public lawsuit that illuminated this issue.

Watch the Show HERE!

Back at the end of December of 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, Digital Recognition Network (DRN) filed a lawsuit against Relentless Recovery, Inc. of Ohio. The cause was the violation of a breach of contract by Relentless as the result of their desire to do business with a competing LPR provider before the expiration of DRN’s one-year non-competition clause.

Read the Complaint Here!

After some legal back and forth negotiations, on October 26, 2022, Relentless announced publicly that they had entered into a settlement agreement with DRN, a subsidiary of Motorola Solutions, to terminate its license agreement. This came after a settlement agreement resulting in Relentless Recovery paying DRN a sum equivalent to the revenue share generated over a year plus attorney fees over 30 consecutive months. The settlement took a year of negotiations between Relentless Recovery and DRN.

Just over a week later, DRN and MVTRAC president Jeremiah Wheeler offered this statement.

Has LPR Technology Been Monopolized? “DRN applauds and welcomes honest and ethical competition in the marketplace. Unfortunately, at times we discover that not everyone wants to play by the same rules. After DRN discovered that Relentless Recovery was surreptitiously working with one of DRN’s competitors in violation of its license agreement with DRN — which was still in place, DRN was left with no alternative but to pursue litigation,” Wheeler said.

“The settlement agreement which Relentless is just now announcing was actually concluded over four months ago and requires Relentless to pay $230,000 to DRN for violating the terms of the parties’ license agreement. In addition, Relentless expressly acknowledged in the settlement agreement the validity and enforceability of the non-competition provision and the license agreement,” Wheeler continued.

“Moreover, unlike many settlement agreements where liability is disclaimed, Relentless expressly admitted liability in the settlement agreement for violating the terms of the license agreement. Relentless admitted that it began doing business with Insight LPR — a competitor of DRN — before providing DRN with a notice terminating the license agreement, and that its agreements and activities with Insight LPR violated the terms of that license agreement with DRN,” he went on to say.

All of this was based on DRN’s contract which in Clause 11, creates a “Restriction Period” of one year. A non-competition clause that Relentless Recovery violated as per terms of this agreement.