Here was an interesting piece of news from Apple yesterday which I completely overlooked. Apple and Creative apparently settled all of their outstanding litigation between them – settling five different lawsuits between the two companies. So who came out ahead? Well from a financial standpoint, Creative did as Apple will be paying them 100 million for the use of a patent. The patent in question is known as the “Zen” patent and dictates how a software menu is designed to find and play back music on portable digital audio players. Of course this settlement will probably fuel Creative’s desires to go after other MP3 manufacturers. What was particularly interesting was Creative’s agreement to become a “Made for iPod” program partner. After years of going heads up against the Apple iPod, Creative will now be selling accessories to help support the iPod. Interesting stuff.

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