Bad news for fans of tedious drawn out litigation - Apple and Creative will not be taking their patent squabbles through the courts, instead they have reached an out of court settlement, which is no fun whatsoever.
As previously reported, the main patent over which the two MP3 player rivals were squabbling covered the system used to enable users to navigate their music collections on a portable music player. Creative applied for the patent on that system at the start of 2001, sometime ahead of Apple, and it was granted to them last year. Claiming that Apple was now violating that patent, Creative earlier this year began action against its rival - seeking a court injunction to ultimately stop the manufacture and sale of iPods, in the US at least. Apple subsequently countersued, claiming Creative violated some of its patents.
This week's out of court settlement, which will see Apple pay Creative $100 million, will bring to an end both sets of litigation. Apple may also be able to get some of that some back if Creative is able to secure licensing deals with other MP3 player manufacturers, though the specifics of that arrangement are unclear.
Apple boss Steve Jobs confirmed a deal had been reached, adding: "Creative is very fortunate to have been granted this early patent", while a spokesman for Creative added: "We're very pleased to have reached a broad agreement with Apple".