Elan: 'Apple's paying us $5 million for multitouch patents'

Remember the longstanding patent punch-up 'twixt Cupertino and Elan Microelectronics? No? Well, Taiwan's Elan said that Apple infringed two of its multitouch patents, which the ITC disagreed with -- the judge stating he found no infringement and therefore no cause for an outright ban on sales of iDevices. Now, in a rather strange twist, and perhaps just to extricate itself from the case completely, The Haus of Tim is paying $5 million to Elan in an out-of-court settlement. Aside from the relatively paltry sum of cash, the settlement also allows the companies to cross-license each other's relevant patents -- a deal which might arguably serve Elan better than it serves Apple.