• Manfred Grundke, 48, has been appointed president of Bosch Rexroth, replacing Winfried Witte who will be retiring on April 30. Grundke is a mechanical engineer and is president of Bosch Rexroth`s electric drives and controls business. He joined Mannesmann Rexroth in 1984 and was chairman of the Rexroth Hydraulics board from 1997 to 1998. Witte has been president of Bosch Rexroth since it was formed in May 2001.

• Shareholders in the US controls company Nematron have voted for the company to go private and to abandon its listing on the American Stock Exchange. The company is expected to be sold to a private owner for around $12.6m.

• Tyco Electronics Logistics and Elo Touchsystems have settled a patent infringement dispute with Happ Controls Europe. Happ has agreed stop selling touchscreens covered by a European patent for surface wave touchpanel technology which is held by Tyco, with Elo as its licensee. Happ will reimburse Tyco for its legal costs.

• The North American market for AC and DC drives fell by 2.3% over the past two years according to a new survey by IMS Research. The drop was due a combination of the trend to smaller, lower-cost drives and the slow economy. A pickup in demand in late 2003 should continue to gain pace this year but will lose momentum in 2005, IMS says.

• SoftWire Technology has lodged a complaint accusing National Instruments` LabView product of infringing two virtual instrument technology patents that it acquired from Fluke. SoftWire is seeking an order prohibiting NI from continuing to sell LabView, and wants unspecified damages for past sales of LabView.