Someone at A le has had to keep the checkbook on call lately. After forking over $100m to Creative for an iPod UI patent at, A le has just settled a second lawsuit, this time over various basic elements of the iTunes UI and functionality. We reported this way back in June of '05 when Contois Music Technology originally filed their lawsuit alleging that A le employees witne ed some of their features at a mid-90's trade show, then promptly ri ed them off. The list of duplicated features includes sorting music by genre, artist and album, as well as moving music to a portable device. This time around, details of the settlement weren't disclosed, so it's anybody's gue as to how much they had to dig out of the couch cushio . Engadget hit it on the head: patent lawsuits are an ugly, expe ive beasts, and A le probably moved quickly to simply settle and walk away to fight another day. After all, it can't be easy being such a large target on top of the coveted DAP industry - e ecially when you might have ste ed on someone else's toes to get there.
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