Rockstar and Google settle patent dispute
The Rockstar Consortium—which includes Apple and Microsoft among its backers—has settled its lawsuit with Google.
In the document, filed on November 17, Rockstar and Google said they signed a term sheet on November 12 that settled all matters relating to the suit.
Terms of the settlement, filed at the US District Court of the Eastern District of Texas, were not disclosed.
The dispute between the pair can be traced back to 2009 when Canadian-based telecommunications company Nortel went bust and auctioned a lucrative portfolio containing more than 6,000 of its patents.
The portfolio was sold in 2011 to Rockstar, which was backed by Microsoft, Apple, RIM, Ericsson and Sony, and defeated Google with a $4.5 billion bid.
Last year, Rockstar sued Google and several other smartphone makers for allegedly infringing those patents.
Rockstar alleged that Google, HTC, Samsung, and other makers of smartphones that use the Google Android operating system violated seven patents in the portfolio.
The patents were part of a patent family called “associative search engine" and centred on the way certain internet search terms are matched with relevant advertising.
