If there's any coal in Motorola's stocking this year, it could be from Microsoft.

Reuters is reporting that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has agreed to hear Motorola's case against Microsoft, which it filed in late November.

Handset maker Motorola Mobility, which Motorola plans to spin off next year, filed its complaint against Microsoft due to the company's use of Motorola patents in its Xbox game console. Included in those patents were things like wireless networking and video decoding.

Motorola is seeking an exclusion order, as well as a cease and desist order against Microsoft in order to keep its game systems from being imported into the U.S.

The ITC notes that the case still needs to be assigned to one of its six administrative law judges before a hearing can be scheduled. Whatever decision is made by that judge then gets reviewed by the commission, a process that can take up to 45 days after the hearing takes place.

Related: ITC to probe Apple patent claims against Motorola