The companies have 45 days to work out exactly how the payments will be made, with the first payment due to InterDigital (King of Prussia, Pa.) early next year.

Samsung will get access to InterDigital's patents covering both W- CDMA and cdma2000 interface standards and any related extensions through 2012. In exchange, InterDigital will quietly forgot about Samsung's use of 2G technologies.

As part of the long running dispute between the companies, InterDigital in July tried to get an import ban against Samsung for patent infringements.

The company still holds many mobile technology patents, at least one of which has been ruled essential for anyone building a 3G handset.

"I am extremely pleased that we have reached a favorable agreement with Samsung to end this longstanding dispute," commented William Merritt, President and Chief Executive Officer of InterDigital. "The agreement is consistent with our long term strategic plan, and reflects well on the strength of our patent portfolio and our ability to design flexible deal structures."

Also earlier this year, InterDigital and Nokia Corporation agreed to end two legal actions in the English Courts.

The deal closed one of the chapters in a long running and continuing series of patent infringement disputes between InterDigital and the Finnish handset maker.

The cases concerned whether some patents owned by the companies were essential to the UMTS 3G mobile standard.