Vonage last week announced that it had settled its patent dispute with Sprint and had entered into a licensing arrangement under Sprint's Voice over Packet (VOP) patent portfolio. Under the terms of the agreement, valued at $80 million, Vonage will pay Sprint $35 million for past use of the license and $40 million for a fully paid future license, along with $5 million in prepayment for services. The settlement resolves one legal problem for Vonage, moving the company past a Sept. 25 verdict, which found that Vonage had infringed six Sprint patents.

In a separate announcement also made last week, Vonage said that the company has filed a motion for a review with the U.S. Court of Appeals, after the court’s Sept. 26 decision, which left active some parts of a patent infringement suit filed by Verizon that Vonage lost earlier in the year.

In other news, 3Com announced late last month that it has signed an agreement to be acquired for about $2.2 billion by Bain Capital Partners, a global private investment firm.

The transaction is expected to be completed by the first quarter of calendar year 2008, and it is subject to 3Com shareholder approval, customary regulatory approvals, and other customary closing conditions. According to the company, “affiliates of Huawei Technologies will acquire a minority interest in the company and become a commercial and strategic partner of 3Com as a part of the transaction.”

Also last month, Avaya announced that its stockholders had approved the agreement signed in June 2007 providing for the acquisition of Avaya by affiliates of Silver Lake Partners and TPG, two private equity firms. In the same statement, Avaya said: “All regulatory approvals required to complete the transaction have been obtained, including the receipt of clearance from the European Commission.” The final transaction is expected to close by the end of this month.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.