...cheap! Apple only had to spend $100 million to get what they wanted out of Creative. That's less than they would have had to pay to buy the whole company.

Apple won this one, and cheap too. Creative has to give most of that money to stockholder by the end of the quarter, and ... then what? Breadcrumbs again, only this time selling iPod accessories (in a VERY crowded market) instead of using that money to make something new.

If I were a betting man, I'd say Creative's got about three years left.

100 million to Creative for their joke of a patent which wasn't even valid and didn't have any legal basis to apply to the iPod? As an Apple shareholder I am FURIOUS about this idiotic move by Cupertino! GRRRR

You missed this: "Apple can recoup a portion of its payment if Creative is successful in licensing this patent to others, however. "

In other words, what's really going on is Apple is funding Creative's lawyers to go hobble Apple competitors. And they share in the "profits" ;-)

When this lawsuit was announced, all we heard here was how Apple was going to b****-slap Creative around, the lawsuit would be thrown out, prior art, Apple's counter-suing will drive them out of business, there's no way this will hold up, etc, etc, etc.

Now Apple has settled. Which means, to me, that their lawyers thought they were either going to lose this case outright or it was going to be a long legal affair.

So, now its all "Apple got off cheap!" and "Talk about winning!" Maybe you should be looking at the other end, which is that Creative apparently has a valid patent and Apple violated it. (Oh no, can't do that, then someone might dare say something negative about Apple!).

I don't think Apple did anything wrong here. This patent that was in dispute has been in use since the 70's. For creative to have been awarded it in the first place was unreal. ..... At least it's over.

Apple did not agree, Creative just legally outmaneuvered Apple. In fact, I am sure the settlement agreement will state Apple denies that it did anything wrong. Moreover, the federal courts probably would have sided with Apple and overturned the patent office's decision regarding Creative's patent as there is nothing intuitive about Creative's interface. Windows and OSx have used the same set up since their inception. The Next OS used it before that.

The problem was that Creative was not suing Apple over the patent in Federal Court, but was instead seeking to have Apple's iPods seized at customs based on Apple's infringing its patent. The custom officials would not have considered whether the patent was valid or not. They would have just considered whether there was a Creative patent that covered the iPod.

The patent litigation would have happned later. Consequently, Apple risked having its iPods seized at customs.

By settling Apple can 1) focus on other things, and 2) will make the competition worry, as Apple gave Creative the money to go after them. The same patent that Apple is said to violate is also used on just about every other MP3 player. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft licensings Creative's patent before shipping Zune.

Yeah, I'd say Apple won this fight, and at the same time this was the most brilliant pre-emptive strategic strike I have seen in a long time.

Not only has Apple settled the patent question, but with the settlement they have validated Creative's patent, making it easier for Creative to go after other manufacturers infringing this patent - and as part of the settlement, Apple will share into whatever future settlements Creative will win... If you guys can't see the writing on that wall, you must be blind.

Plus, Creative is doing exactly what they always should have been doing, building excellent iPod peripherals and accessories... and I would not be surprised if, by and large, they will be phasing out their crappy MP3 players, al the while being allowed to save face... and becoming Apple's ally.

This is simply too good!

Seriously dude, its good that your here cause I think your the only one that makes sense. I totally agree with you

The othes are just hypocritical guinea pigs that loves the taste of Steves d*ck!

Quoting Zinkdifferent: "Not only has Apple settled the patent question, but with the settlement they have validated Creative's patent, making it easier for Creative to go after other manufacturers infringing this patent - and as part of the settlement, Apple will share into whatever future settlements Creative will win... If you guys can't see the writing on that wall, you must be blind. "

The legal settlement does not validate Creative's patent. It just means that it was not decided at all. No future parties are bound by any agreement reached between Apple and Creative, and no one is bound by any court decision in this case, because no court made any ruling.

Sure, in a way, Creative demonstrated to the community that it has a patent that it will try to defend. But Creative cannot exactly use this as a weapon, since it is just as likely to tempt potential defendants from seeking a declaratory judgment on the matter.

I think this is all good for the future. Apple can keep doing what they want to do, Creative can get a little more creative with their iPod accessories and in the end the consumer wins.

This is probably one of those rare cases where the settlement is just. Of course it's probably only just because they settled. Had it been settled for them...