APPLE, NOKIA SPAT ENDS; APPLE PAYING NOKIA

On Tuesday Nokia announced that it has reached an agreement with Apple that “will result in settlement of all patent litigation between the companies,” and that both firms will withdraw all complaints against one another from the U.S. International Trade Commission. The two firms have been fighting over patents for the past few years, filing counter suit after counter suit. The battle was thought to have had some closure when the U.S. ITC ruled that Apple did not infringe on Nokia’s patents, but then last month the government group said it would continue its investigation. Nokia said Tuesday that the agreement “consists of a one-time payment payable by Apple,” and that the Cupertino-based company will continue to pay royalties to Nokia for the remainder of the agreement. “We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees,” said Stephen Elop, Nokia’s president and CEO. “This settlement demonstrates Nokia’s industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market.”

DISH NETWORK AND ECHOSTAR TO PAY TIVO $500 MILLION TO SETTLE LAWSUIT

Dish Network, EchoStar and TiVo have come to a settlement on their long running patent dispute (since 2006) that will see the satellite company pay $500 million to settle all ongoing litigation. We stopped covering the various court judgements in this case last year as each side continued to file one stay and injunction after another, but this time it's finally over. The most recent court judgement came April 20th in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and found EchoStar in contempt of an earlier injunction despite modifications to its DVR software.

The companies have licensed certain patents to each other, including the infamous Time Warp patent that was at the heart of the dispute. Details are in the press release after the break, but TiVo's scored an upfront $300 million cash payment (Dish Network is also reporting today it added 58,000 subscribers and had a net income of $549 million last quarter, we guess there was some loose change rolling around after its Blockbuster and DBSD purchases), with the remaining $200 million to be paid out between 2012 and 2017.

SONY AND GEOHOT SETTLE LAWSUIT

After all the talk of TROs, tweets, and YouTube user info, it seems that the SCEA vs. Geohot litigation has come to a rather uneventful conclusion. According to Sony's Playstation Blog, the case has been settled, and Hotz has agreed to a permanent injunction preventing him from distributing his PS3 jailbreak hack ever again. Of course, while this settlement has cowed the man who did the initial distribution deed, the jailbreak genie's out of the bottle, and no court order can ever put it back.

VERIZON SETTLES FEDERAL LAWSUIT FOR $93.5 MILLION

On Tuesday, Verizon Communications agreed to pay $93.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department. Verizon was accused of overcharging the U.S. government for both voice and data services. Reuters reports that the the company’s MCI Communications Services unit “invoiced the General Services Administration for various taxes and surcharges in violation of contracts or regulations.” Back in October of 2010, Verizon was ordered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repay customers more than $52 million for erroneous data charges.

NETFLIX CUSTOMERS ARE DUE A GIFT CARD FROM WAL-MART

In 2005, Wal-Mart and Netflix teamed-up to ward-off Blockbuster: Wal-Mart ceased renting DVDs online, and Netflix promised never to sell physical DVDs. According to a court case, that agreement violated antitrust laws—which means Netflix customers are owed money.

Wal-Mart chose to settle the case, and will gift Netflix customers who become class members of the case a Walmart.com gift card, or maybe even a check. They're said to be spending between $29 million - $40 million making this issue disappear. Only those living in the US are eligible, but taking into account there's 16 million Netflix customers in the US and Canada, that's still a lot of people who could be in for a lump-sum. No word on how the affected parties will be contacted.