Huawei Technologies Co. has won a court order preventing Motorola Solutions Inc. for now from transferring the Chinese telecom-gear maker's intellectual property in an impending acquisition by Nokia Siemens Networks.

Huawei sued last month, arguing that Motorola's deal to sell its network-equipment business to Nokia Siemens would illegally transfer Huawei's trade secrets to a competitor. Motorola had access to Huawei secrets as a longtime reseller of the Chinese company's gear.

The preliminary injunction, issued by a federal judge in Chicago, prevents the transfer of any Huawei secrets pending arbitration of the dispute. It signals the judge believes that the claims leveled by Huawei, itself accused of infringing others' intellectual property in the past, have cleared a basic level of plausibility.