The top money-changing-hands IP cases were dominated by household names of processor-based technology companies: Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, Rambus, and DirecTV. The $612.5 million NTP / RIM settlement, only achieved by putting an injunction gun to Jim Balsillie's head, dwarfed other patent settlements in 2006. Masimo v. Tyco settled at $330m; Interdigital v. Nokia settled at $253m; while Rambus snagged $134m from Hynix in a judgment, followed in a close shave by David Colvin getting a $133m judgment against Microsoft/Autodesk.

By industry, no surprise, the technology town criers for patent reform took the biggest toll of IP (including copyright & trademark) judgments and settlements ($ in millions).

1. $2064 (63%) Processor technology (includes telecom)
2. $1005 (30%) Health care
3. $120 (4%) Media & entertainment
4. $63 (2%) Financial services
5. $58 (2%) Retail, leisure and consumer
6. $4 (0%) Energy & natural resources

This year's take paled to last year's. Only two judgments exceeded $300 million in 2006, compared to nine such whoppers in 2005. The top of the charts in 2005 was Dr. Gary K. Michelson scraping $1.35 billion from Medtronic in settlement over spinal fusion patents.

Here are the top ten U.S. IP settlements (S) and judgments (J) of all time (in $ millions).

1. $1350 - Michelson v. Medtronic (S)
2. $1250 - Sun Microsystems v. Microsoft (S)
3. $1000 - Texas Instruments v. Hyundi (S)
3. $1000 - Texas Instruments v. Samsung (S)
5. $873 - Polaroid v. Eastman Kodak (J)
6. $750 - Medinol v. Boston Scientific (J)
7. $613 - NTP v. Research in Motion (S)
8. $536 - Novell v. Microsoft (S)
9. $521 - Eolas Technologies v. Microsoft (J)
10. $500 - City of Hope Medical v. Genentech (J)