Hillsboro, Oregon-based TriQuint Semiconductor, and analog semiconductor and components firm Avago Technologies Limited have settled a series of patent lawsuits filed by the companies against each other, the companies said this week. Financial details of the settlement were not disclosed. According to the two, they have entered into patent cross licenses and have agreed to dismiss all related litigation. The two have been locked in a patent fight since 2009. The legal fight was started by TriQuint, which filed suit in 2009 when Avago began telling customers that TriQuint's products infringed upon at least four of its own patents, and not to use TriQuint's RF products.

Bellevue-based Intellectual Ventures and paintings and coatings firm AkzoNobel announced today taht the tow have entered into a joint collaboration agreement, to develop new technologies for the paint and coatings industry. According to the firm, the deal allows AkzoNobel with access to technology from IV's portfolio of chemistry and materials science inventions. Intellectual Ventures said that a Seattle company, Seattle Polymers, was instrumental in the deal with AkzoNobel. Intellectual Ventures said the deal will allow AzkoNobel to tap its network of inventors to develop and acquire rights to the IP that could help differentiate AkzoNobel’s future products. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Seattle-based cloud infrastructure automation software developer Opscode announced a number of enterprise features and enhancements to its flagship software, Chef today, saying that it has added such features as integration with Active Directory, native support for Solaris, "one-click" installs, and more. Opscode reports that it is now approaching 100,000 downoads per month of its open source version of Chef, with total downloads of over a million. Opscode provides a premium version of that open code software, "Private Chef", which the firm offers with support and additional tools. The company said it is also offering up free trials of that premium software, including 60 days of support from the company. Opscode is venture backed by Ignition Partners, Battery Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Wilsonville, Oregon-based electronic design automation and embedded software provider Mentor Graphics has added a maker of Android-based, set-top boxes as a customer. The firm said that Vestel Electronics, a European maker of set-top boxes, is using its Mentor Embedded Inflexion UI product to develop the user interface for its new set-top-box. Financial details of the win were not disclosed. Mentor's tools are used by embedded software developers to create user interfaces for their products. The company said the toolset runs on GENIVI, Linux, Android, and Nucleus real time operating systems.

Seattle-based real estate site Zillow said this morning that it has launched a "Zillow Partnership Platform"--a list of principles that outline the firm's commitment to help the company work better with multiple listing services and brokers. Zillow said it pledges include promising never to re-syndicate, redistribute, or sub-license listings; honoring all intellectual property rights; allowing MLS or brokers to update active listings and remove stale information as frequently as allowed; and more. Zillow did not say why it decided to roll out the list of commitments to brokers, but said it is applying the list of principles to all renewal and future MLS abd broker contracts.

Seattle-based Medify, which operates an online site which allows users to learn more about health conditions via the experiences of other patients, has been acquired by healthcare social networking provider Alliance Health Networks. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. Medify was venture backed by Voyager Capital, and was founded by Derek Streat and Jay Bartot. Alliance Health, which is based in Salt Lake City, said that both Streat and Bartot will join the company's team as Senior Vice Presidents. Medify was founded in 2010.

Seattle-based Prosodic, a developer of predictive analytics software aimed at helping publishers gain Facebook followers and likes, said this morning that it has raised $1.4M in a seed funding round. The round included Ignition Partners, as well as angels David Remer (Remer Inc.) and Gary Vaynerchuk (author, Vayner Media). Prosodic, which is led by Leigh Fatzinger, said it is looking to help companies, brands, and publishers to understand their Facebook audiences, to improve the interaction of their Facebook fans.

Kirkland-based smartphone app provider Pirq, the startup headed by James Sun, is expanding out its distribution today with a partnership with the University of Washington's Alumni Association (UWAA). Pirq said the deal will give instant savings at more than 150 restaurants in the greater Puget Sound area to the UWAA's 55,000 members. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The deal is the second, group-oriented deal announced by the firm this month, which said earlier this month that it landed a similar deal to provide deals to Apple employes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sun is a UQ alum. Pirq'a app provides special, location-based discounts to restaurants, delivered via smartphone.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, has backed an online marketplace which allows artists and others to show off their portfolio of work. New York-based Behance said Monday that it has raised $6.5M in a funding round, which included an investment from Bezos Expeditions, Jeff Bezos' personal investment fund, as well as Union Square Ventures, Dave Morin, Yves Behar, Chris Dixon, Dave Tisch, Dave McClure (500Startups), Alexis Ohanian, and Garrett Camp. Behance allows creative types to show their portfolio online, and find jobs and customers.

Seattle-based Revenue Management Systems, the developer of airfare management and ticket management software for airlines, has signed on another customer, the company said today. RMS said it has signed European carrier Belle Air with its tools. Financial details of the win were not disclosed. Belle Air is based in Albania.

Bellevue-based Intellectual Ventures has teamed with graphics chip maker NVIDIA, to acquire a pile of patents covering the communications industry, the two said this morning. The two said they have acquired approximately 500 patent assets from IPWireless, a developer of wireless technology. IV and NVIDIA said they will split ownership of the patents.

With the explosion of video on the Internet, and a similar explosion in the number of video capable devices in the world, content providers and Internet service providers have a problem: how to serve video to all those different formats. How do you solve that problem? One way, is to tap the hardware and software of Portland-based Elemental Technologies (www.elementaltechnologies.com). Elemental--which just announced a new round of funding earlier this week--develops hardware which leverage off-the-shelf graphical process units (GPUs) for its products. We learned more about the firm by talking with Sam Blackman, the firm's CEO.

For people who aren't familiar with Elemental, tell us what your products are all about?

Sam Blackman: Elemental builds video processing solutions for powering streaming video. Our systems take video that was created for legacy video delivery architectures, like cable, over-the-air broadcast, IPTV, or satellite, and we can then repurpose that for distributing it to multiple streams, such as to an iPod, iPad, iPhone, Android device, Flash player, or boxes like the Roku. We can handle any kind of format over IP, and create and format the video for delivering to those devices.

Why is it necessary to adapt to all those different devices?

Sam Blackman: Each device uses a different video standard to display video. A Flash player on your PC uses one standard, and an Apple player on the iPad uses another. The Boxee box uses a third standard....

Seattle-based Amazon Web Services announced this morning that it has added support for dynamic content into its Amazon CloudFront, content delivery network (CDN) service. AWS said the new capability allows developers to increase the performance and reliability of interactive web applications, without requiring new code. The service previously only supported static web content. Amazon said the expanded service will be available at the same prices as its existing CloudFront service.

Liberty Lake, Washington-based Itron, the maker of smart utility meters, has signed up another utility as a customer--in Algeria. Itron said that ENAMC (National Company of Measurement and Control Instruments), will deploy its C&I advanced data collection systems over the next 18 months in the country of Algeria, to manage electricity consumption. Financial impact of the deal was not announced.

Wilsonville, Oregon-based Mentor Graphics reports this morning that it has applied its simulator tools to the design of silicon oscillators from eoSemi. Mentor said that its Eldo simulator and Calibre tools were used by eoSemi, to design and verify its ATOC (Accurate Timing Oscillator Circuit) silicon oscillator products. Mentor did not say what the impact of the win was on the company.

Ensequence, a developer of technology to provide interactivity on cable, satellite, telco and connected devices, said today that it has raised $26.0M in a funding round. The firm, which has development operations in Portland, said the funding was led by Myrian Capital, an investment company associated with the Mathile family. As part of the funding, Jim Stengel, former Global Marketing Officer at Procter & Gamble, has joined the company's board. Ensequence's customers include NBCUniversal, MTV Networks, Showtime Networks, Turner Broadcasting, HBO, Comcast, Dish Network, Time Warner and Verizon. Ensequence's technology is used to power interactive television applications. Myrian Capital manages the personal fortunes of Clay Mathile, the founder of Iams, who is worth somewhere around $1.8 billion, according to Forbes.

Amazon.com has made its name disrupting industries. But, does the e-commerce giant have the technology blogging world in its sights? According to a report published this week, it does, as it plans to launch a trio of blogs targeted directly at popular technology blog sites like Gizmodo and Engadget. Citing multiple sources, the report at The Daily said that the blogs include a technology gear focused blog (with requisite links back to Amazon), and entertainment blog covering film and entertainment, and digital photography.

In what may be a true opening for Microsoft's Bing search engine to gain some market share, Bing said Thursday that it has released a newly redesigned version of its service. Responding to widespread criticism of competitor Google's push to force its Google+ social network onto its users, Bing launched a new interface which emphasizes the firm's algorithmic searches, while still providing access to social search results and social networking sites such as Facebook. Bing said the launch is the "most significant update" to the search engine since its launch three years ago, explaining how it did an test between versions of Google and Bing on users to track preferences, showing that users preferred its new search results 43 percent to Google's 28 percent. Bing has taken a radically different approach from Google, which now automatically presents users with searches tuned to their connections and friends; Bing instead provides both algorithmic and social searches via separate columns, making social searches always available but "never intrusive", moving most of the social content it provides into a separate section of the page. The new design changes may give Bing a chance to claw back some significant market share back from Google, as Google's push to "unify" its services and force users to use Google+ instead of social networks like Facebook have caused uproar among some users.

Seattle-based Treemo Labs said Thursday that it has released premium version of its Appafolio iPad and iPhone application creation products, to automatically turn collections of photos and business presentations into iOS apps. The app helps users take their collection of multimedia photos, graphics, titles, and more, and can thrn them into privately branded apps which can be downloaded from the Apple App store. Among enhancements to the software, the firm said that users can now send work between iOS devices using open Wi-Fi connections. The firm's premium plans start at $5 per month. Treemo is headed by Brent Brookler, and is venture backed by JK&B Capital.

Zillow said Thursday that its newest contributor to its blog is none other than home improvement guru Bob Vila. who helped pave the way for an entire generation of home improvement shows and cable networks from his show "This Old House". Zillow said that Vila will be the newest contributor to the Zillow Blog, running an interview with Vila to launch the effort. Zillow did not say how often Vila would be contributing to its blog, but Vila has been taking his advice online recently on an online web site, BobVila.com.

Financiers over at Seattle-based Vulcan Capital should be happy this morning, after one of their portfolio firms hit the market in a successful IPO. Audience, a developer of voice processing technology which helps improve the quality of mobile phone calls, debuted on the Nasdaq as ADNC. The stock opened at $19.00 per share, above both its pricing last night at $17.00 per share and well above an initial estimated IPO range of $14.00 to $16.00 per share. Vulcan Capital owned a large pre-IPO chunk--25 percent--of Audience. The firm's other investors were New Enterprise Associates and Tallwood Venture Capital. Audience is based in Mountain View, California.

Seattle-based BlueNile, the online jewelry retailer, is planning to offer up a new branded credit card, according to credit card and loyalty marketing firm Alliance Data. Alliance Data said it is in a multi-year agreement to manage the private label credit card program for Blue Nile, which will include special financing options and no annual card fee. Blue Nile said in a statement that it is looking to "turn our engagement ring shoppers into Blue Nile customers for life."

Seattle-based Opscode, the developer of cloud infrastructure automation tools, has tied its software into HP's Cloud Services offering, the firm said today. Opscode, which is venture backed by Ignition Partners, Battery Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, said the move will enable businesses to fully automate and manage their HP public cloud infrastructure. Opscode's software makes it easier for IT administrators to automate deployment of cloud servers. Opscode's CEO is Mitch Hill.

Seattle-based Boeing has completed its acquisition of software firm Inmedius, the company announced this morning, in a deal which had been announced on April 26th. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Inmedius is a provider of software used for managing and sharing information, and was headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa. Boeing said that Inmedius becomes part of its Continental DataGraphics (CDG) unit, which is part of Boeing Commercial Aviation Services. Inmedius has 75 employees.

Redmond-based MicroVision, which develops miniature projection display technology, said this morning that private investors have agreed to invest approximately $5M in the company in an equity investment deal. Microvision said the lead investors is Shmuel Farhi, a Canadian-based real estate developer and the sole owner of Farhi Holdings Corporation. MicroVision is publicly traded on the NASDAQ as MVIS.

Amazon.com said this morning that all seven of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books are set to hit the Kindle Lending Library on June 19th. According to Amazon, the exclusive license with J.K. Rowling's Pottermore will make the titles more available to Amazon Prime members, who are able to borrow books for free as frequently as once a month. The deal comes only a couple of months after Amazon managed to ink an exclusive deal with Rowling to feature Harry Potter on the Kindle reader, the first ever time that the series has been made available on an electronic reader. No financial details of the deal have been announced.

Vancouver, BC-based RewardLoop, a developer of QR-code based loyalty programs for businesses, has scored $1M in a Series A funding from Seattle's Madrona Ventures, the firm said today. RewardLoop's mobile software allows users to scan QR codes on reciepts from specially enabled point-of-sale (POS) systems, to gain access to rewards.

Seattle-based RealNetworks has named two new executives, to bolster its digital media strategy and product development. According to the firm, it has named Torrie Dorrell as Senior Vice President of Digital Media and Strategy, and named Robert Gross as Vice President of New Products. Dorrell was most recently Vice President of Applications, Content and Games at T-Mobile, and also has served at Sony Online Entertainment, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. and The Walt Disney Company. Gross was most recently at Microsoft, where he spent over sixteen years, and also has served at IBM, Sun Microsystems, Yamaha Music and Lucasfilm.

Seattle-based EveryMove, the health and fitness tracking service headed by Marcello Calbucci, has raised $2.6M in a funding round from partners Premera Blue Cross, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska, BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners and others. EveryMove, which was part of the Seattle TechStars 2011 class, is currently in beta mode.

Portland-based Swan Island Networks, a provider of cloud-based, data services, said Tuesday that it has raised $2.5M in a financing round. Source of the funding was not announced. The company said the new preferred stock financing round included both new cash and conversion of debt. Swan Island is headed by CEO Charles Jennings. Swan Island's software is used to unify multiple business intelligence and other data sources into a single platform.

Kirkland-based Pirq, the developer of mobile dining deals apps headed by James Sun, said Tuesday that it has expanded its service to the San Francisco Bay Area. Pirq said it app will specifically roll out to employees at Apple Computer, offering up discounts of 20 to 50 percent off their bills at select restaurants in Cupertino, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View, California. Pirq said the expansion and deal comes thanks to discount provider Passport Unlimited, which is the sold discount provider for Apple's employees. Venture backed Pirq previously only offered its services in Seattle, where it now says it has over 150 restaurants signed up for the discount service. Pirq's apps run on both the iPhone and Android.

Seattle-based Amazon Web Services launched a new database service Tuesday, rolling out a new managed database service , the Amazon Relational Database Services for Microsoft SQL Server, and ASP.NET support for AWS Elastic Beanstalk. Amazon said the service helps businesses to deploy, manage, and scale SQL Server database and ASP.NET applications. The new service currently supports SQL Server 2008 R2, and will eventually include support for SQL Server 2012 later this year. The addition of the service helps web developers who are using Microsoft and its .NET development environment, and manages the complexity of deploying and creating SQL Server databases. The addition of SQL Server support comes on top of existing Amazon RDS and Elastic Beanstalk support for MySQL and Oracle databases.

Bellevue-based Intellectual Ventures, the patent licensing behemoth run by Nathan Mhyrvold, has signed another major deal with a semiconductor maker. According to a regulatory filing from Cypress Semiconductor, it will receive a license to Intellectual Ventures' patent portfolio, and will pay a license fee and purchase certain litigation defense services from IV in the future. Financial details of the deal were not announced. The filing was first noted by Geekwire.

Seattle-based Revenue Management System, the developer of software for helping airline carriers set pricing on their tickets, said today that it has scored another win, this time with Intersky Luftfahrt GmbH. Size of the win was not disclosed. Revenue Management Systems said InterSky is using its software for revenue management, pricing, and analysis.