Apple settles patent row for $25m

Apple has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a patent infringement dispute centring on technology used in its iTunes software.

The California-based company will pay Network-1 Technologies to end the litigation, which has been pending in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas since 2008.

The dispute centred on US patent number 6,006,227, called “Document stream operating system”. It relates to methods that enable unified search, indexing, displaying and archiving of documents in a computer system.

Originally owned by technology company Mirror World Technologies, the patent was acquired by licensing company Network-1 in 2013.

Under the terms of the agreement, Apple will also pay for a non-exclusive licence to the ‘227 patent for its full term, along with “certain rights to other patents in Network-1’s portfolio”.