CIBA Vision and CooperVision Inc. have reported that they have reached an agreement to settle patent litigation that resolves all current patent-infringement lawsuits between the two companies.

CIBA Vision, the Duluth, Ga.-based eye-care unit of Novartis, said it has licensed its so called Nicolson patents to CooperVision. This will enable both companies to move forward in bringing forth new and improved products. The Nicolson patents cover high-oxygen-transmissible contact lenses, including CIBA Vision's O2OPTIX AIR OPTIXand NIGHT & DAY silicone hydrogel contact lenses.

In exchange, CooperVision will pay CIBA Vision a royalty on U.S. sales of its Biofinity contact lenses until 2014 and on sales outside of the United States until 2016. CIBA Vision also has licensed two types of patents from CooperVision related to contact-lens designs.

CIBA said the new deal follows a settlement of patent litigation, also involving the Nicolson patents, between CIBA Vision and Bausch & Lomb, reached in 2004, when CIBA Vision and Bausch & Lomb cross-licensed rights to their silicone hydrogel contact-lens technologies. As part of the agreement, Bausch & Lomb agreed to pay CIBA Vision a royalty on U.S. sales of its PureVision brand contact lenses until 2014 and on net sales outside the United States until 2016.

"We are pleased with this agreement," CooperVision CEO Robert Weiss said in a prepared statement. "It allows us to focus on meeting the needs of eye-care professionals and consumers by eliminating the distraction of litigation."