Terms of the agreement were not revealed in the joint statement the two companies issued. The two companies have had a long history of such court wrangling--and subsequent peace treaties. In 2005, for example, the two settled litigation on the unauthorized use of copyrighted photos--an agreement that CoStar alleged LoopNet violated in a federal suit it filed in June.

The duo have also tussled recently in court in New York, over breach of contract and unfair competition issues. In that dispute each firm argued that the other engaged in deceptive marketing practices, but the judge hearing the case did not grant an injunction to either company as they had requested.

In that lawsuit, filed at US District Court in Manhattan, CoStar charged that LoopNet "has engaged in a systematic--and successful--campaign to communicate the false impression that it has a vast, and constantly growing, number of users." It alleged that LoopNet's figure of 3.2-million registered members was a cumulative number representing all who have signed up for the San Francisco-headquartered company's database since it began in 1995, and that LoopNet's monthly web traffic is considerably smaller.

LoopNet made similar claims in a counter-suit against CoStar in June of this year, alleging that CoStar's claim of "900,000 free listings" on its CoStar Showcase product was overstated because most of the listings require a subscription to browse. Those long-running disputes are in the past, Andrew Florance, CEO of CoStar and Richard Boyle, chairman and CEO of LoopNet say in a joint statement.

Instant Insights /

CoStar, LoopNet Settle Legal Differences

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