Acer today confirmed that it has finally settled an ugly ongoing patent spat with Hewlett-Packard.

The Taiwan-based computer maker said in a statement: “The confidential settlement agreement resolves all claims asserted in three federal court lawsuits and two United States International Trade Commission investigations between the parties.”

HP kicked off the patent row over a year ago by suing Acer for allegedly infringing five US patents related to processor tweaks, power-consumption technology and DVD editing tools. It had hoped to block Acer from punting certain products in the US, including notebooks, desktops and media centre systems.

HP filed another lawsuit in April 2007 involving power consumption, bus operations, resolution detection, and two suits concerning temperature management in laptops and desktops.

In July last year, Acer stepped in with its own counterattack, in which it said HP had violated some of its antenna and DVD-ROM head technology.

In October 2007, Acer decided to counter-sue HP, the world’s biggest PC vendor, for alleged infringement of seven patents.

HP said yesterday it had reached a settlement agreement with Acer which means that each action between the two firms will be dismissed. ®