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Yesterday, The Greenbrier Cos. and Canadian Pacific Railway announced they reached a final settlement with National Steel Car Co. regarding a patent infringement case.

National Steel Car alleged that a drop-deck center partition rail car engineered and sold by Greenbrier infringed its patent. Under settlement terms, National Steel Car agreed to drop all litigation against Greenbrier and CPR, which ordered 750 cars from Greenbrier valued at about $45 million.

CPR agreed to cancel an option to sell to Greenbrier and lease-back 600 previously built center-partition cars, which the railroad now will keep as substitutes for a cancelled 500-car order. Most of the new cars will be built at Greenbrier's TrentonWorks plant in Nova Scotia, Canada.

"We will continue to market [the drop-deck] rail car and our newer, V-5 center-partition rail car — both with enhanced design and load capacity features — to our railroad and forest products customers," said Greenbrier Presdient and Chief Executive Officer William Furman in a prepared statement.

In January, an appellate court reversed a lower court decision requiring Greenbrier to halt production of the drop-deck cars.