Motorola, Rockwell Settle Suit Over Patent

Motorola Inc. settled its litigation against Seal Beach-based Rockwell International Corp. concerning alleged infringement of certain Motorola modem technology, and it brought a similar suit against Skokie, Ill.-based U.S. Robotics Corp. in U.S. District Court in Boston. As part of the settlement, Rockwell received a license for the patents involved. Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola sued U.S. Robotics, the biggest maker of desktop modems, charging that U.S. Robotics violated several of Motorola’s patents that cover technologies used in its modems. Some of the patents at issue in the two suits may apply to the next generation of modems, called 56K modems, that Rockwell and U.S. Robotics both make. The two companies support different standards for the 56K, which will allow faster transfer of data between computers.