Barnes & Noble, Via Licensing Settle Over Nooks' Use of AAC, Via Says

Barnes & Noble and Via Licensing settled their legal fight over Barnes & Noble’s use of the AAC codec in its Nook tablets, Via said Tuesday. Five years ago, Barnes & Noble licensed AAC patent rights from the AAC patent pool that Via administers for 11 companies, it said in a news release. Barnes & Noble breached the license, Via alleged in federal lawsuit filed in 2013. Terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed, but Barnes & Noble agreed to pay AAC royalties owed, Via said. Via, a Dolby Labs subsidiary, runs the AAC patent pool for AT&T, Dolby, Ericsson, Fraunhofer, Microsoft, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Panasonic, Philips and Sony. Barnes & Noble representatives didn't comment.