Burst, Apple settle lawsuit
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 23, 2007 at 1:44pm
Burst.com has settled with Apple in return for a one-time payment of US$10 million cash, giving Apple a patent license providing the right to use Burst’s intellectual property in its own technology and products, without further consideration, reports Sys-Con Media.
“Burst plans to continue identifying and evaluating companies who represent licensing opportunities and intends to diligently pursue those likely to yield suitable returns,” the company stated, in an announcement. The announcement continued: “Burst does not plan to announce specific names of suspected infringing products or companies in advance of negotiating with them or filing litigation to enforce its patent rights. Burst does not plan to publicly release any internal assessments of market segment size or dollar value of those markets, although it believes that they are significant enough to warrant the aggressive pursuit of patent licensing.
Court costs, expenses and attorney’s fees in connection with the settlement of the litigation with Apple will reduce proceeds to the Company to approximately $4.6 million. According to the agreement, payment to Burst is to be made promptly after signing of a definitive settlement agreement. Burst’s Board of Directors has indicated that it will be considering a cash distribution to Burst’s shareholders from the Apple license fee, in an amount to be determined.”
Burst.com, a software company said in its lawsuit that Apple owed it millions in fees for using its patented technology in the iPod music player. The company accused Apple of infringing four of Burst’s U.S. patents.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
