Motorola Inc and Intel Corp settled up their trade secrets lawsuit late Friday, saying that the dismissal of pending litigation was expected within two weeks. Specific terms of the deal were not revealed, other than that both parties were said to be satisfied with the settlement.
In March, Motorola asked the Texas state district court to prevent Intel from hiring ex-Motorola workers, saying it feared Intel would place its former staff in positions where they could reveal the company’s trade secrets. Intel opened a chip design plant in Austin, Texas last September, not far from Motorola’s own Somerset plant.
Mark McDermott, one of the top designers in the industry, who headed the joint effort between Motorola and IBM Corp to develop the PowerPC chip, was hired by Intel to run its Austin center. Motorola said that McDermott and 15 other ex-Motorola employees, were using their intimate knowledge of the Somerset center in their work with Intel.
