Taiwan's Acer Inc and Hewlett-Packard say that they have settled their ongoping psatent litiagation. In separate media communiques, the two computermakers said that they had signed a confidential settlement to resolve all claims asserted in three US federal court lawsuits and two US International Trade Commission (ITC) investigations.

HP ias the world's largest PC maker with a 19.9 per cent market sahre, while Acer ranks third, behind Dell, with 9.9 per cent.

The two companies haver not disclosed details of the settlement.

In March 2007, HP had filed a lawsuit against  the world's third largest vendor of personal computers, in a US court alleging infringement of five of its patented used in editing DVDs, managing power consumption in PCs and ways of using multiple microprocessor chips used in Acer's desktops, laptops and displays sold in the US market.

In a counterclaim filed in July 2007, the Taiwaneses firm denied the charges but said HP vioalted its rights to patents to the Industrial Technology Research Institute, in the US and in October further complainted to the US ITC alleging misusing seven of its patents.

In April HP respnded by filing a suit against Acer at the ITC alleging infringement of four of the same patents.

Acer, said in a communique, "The confidential settlement agreement resolves all claims asserted in three federal court lawsuits and two United States International Trade Commission investigations between the parties" and "all actions between the two parties will be dismissed due to the agreement".