Comcast paid $250 million to Sprint to settle a lawsuit stemming from claims by Sprint that the cable operator's digital voice service was infringing on several Sprint patents.
The amount was disclosed this week in a 10-Q filingspotted by thePhiladelphia Inquirer.
Sprint filed the original suit in December 2011 in a Kansas district court, alleging that Comcast’s Digital Voice/Xfinity Voice offering infringed on twelve Sprint patents covering various aspects of a telecommunications system.
The suit also targeted other MSOs, including Time Warner Cable (now part of Charter Communications), which lost the case in a judgement handed down earlier this year. Sprint’s suit against Cable One was dismissed by the court in November 2016, according to court documents.
RELATED: Sprint Sues Comcast, TWC, Cox And Cable One Over VoIP Patents
In the 10-Q, Comcast noted that in January 2017, the court favored Comcast on Sprint’s claims for infringement of two of the patents, with Sprint indicating in March that it would not proceed to trial on three of the patents.
However, a trial with respect to the four remaining patents, including the patent for which the court had already granted partial summary judgment to Sprint, was set to begin on October 23, 2017.
Comcast and Sprint, the filing noted, entered into a settlement agreement on October 17 that dismissed all claims and resolves the disputes asserted in the remains of the case. Tied to the settlement, Comcast recorded a charge of $250 million in Q3 2017.
