Renishaw plc, Tesa SA and Hexagon Metrology, Inc. have agreed to settle the patent litigation currently pending in the US District Court in Illinois. Under the terms of the confidential settlement agreement, the pending suit in Illinois will be dismissed.

The patent dispute involved modular probes that mount on a probehead or CMM by way of an M8 connector and probe racks designed to store stylus modules.

Sir David McMurtry, Chairman and Chief Executive of Renishaw, stated “We are delighted with this settlement and believe that we can now move forward providing innovative solutions to the metrology market.”

“We are pleased to see this lawsuit come to an end. We feel that the mutual understanding between us and Renishaw will work in favour of both parties. We will now focus exclusively on what we do best – making metrology products and servicing the market rather than spending time and money in the courtroom,” says Ola Rollén, CEO and President of Hexagon AB

Renishaw, based in the UK, specialises in the design, manufacture and sale of precision metrology and inspection equipment, which is sold to a broad range of industrial sectors.  Renishaw plc has been honoured with twelve Queen’s Awards to date, recognising Technological Achievement, Export Achievement and, most recently in April 2007, for Enterprise in the Innovations category.

Tesa SA designs and manufactures probes for CMMs, among other products. Hexagon Metrology, Inc. distributes Tesa-brand and Renishaw-brand probes in North America. Both are wholly-owned companies of Hexagon AB.

Hexagon Metrology is part of the Hexagon Group and includes leading metrology brands such as Brown & Sharpe, CE Johansson, CimCore, CogniTens, DEA, Leica Geosystems (Metrology Division), Leitz, PC-DMIS, QUINDOS, ROMER, Sheffield and TESA. With an installed base of more than 50,000 CMMs, over 7,500 portable systems, millions of handheld instruments and over 30,000 licenses of the popular PC-DMIS metrology software, Hexagon Metrology daily supports ist customers to fully control their processes and ensure that what has been designed is in fact manufactured. The company offer of machines, systems and software is completed by a wide range of product support and aftermarket services.

For further information please contact:

Bill Fetter
Director of Marketing and Communications
Hexagon Metrology, Inc.
1558 Todd Farm Drive
Elgin, IL 60123
USA
(920) 906-7514
william.fetter@hexagonmetrology.com