The University of Idaho and an Iowa-based company have agreed to carve up a disputed — but valuable — block of IP addresses.

No money will change hands. And the U of I plans to sell off its share of the IP addresses.

The State Board of Education has approved the settlement between the U of I and Involta LLC, closing the books on a multimillion-dollar legal dispute. But as Idaho Education News reported Monday, the State Board has said next to nothing about the settlement, which it unanimously approved after a vague two-minute discussion during a public meeting Wednesday. (The board discussed the lawsuit in a closed-door meeting the previous day.)

On Friday, EdNews filed public records requests for the settlement with the U of I and the State Board. The U of I provided the settlement Tuesday. The State Board has not responded.

The lawsuit and the settlement have nothing to do directly with education, at the higher education or K-12 level. But the U of I and a host of other education entities have a stake:

• The U of I gets the largest share. It will receive 47,360 IP addresses, slightly more than half of the virtual real estate under dispute.
• Involta, since rebranded as Ark Data Centers LLC, receives 32,512 addresses.
• The remainder — 13,312 addresses in all — will go to an assortment of education entities: Idaho State University; Northwest Nazarene University; Treasure Valley Community College, Ontario, Ore.; Malad High School; and the Idaho Falls, Madison and Oneida school districts.

In an April 2024 lawsuit, the U of I says it acquired the 93,000 IP addresses in 2018, placing them in a trust on behalf of other public universities, including Idaho State.

Involta has also claimed ownership of the addresses, saying the transfer to U of I was recorded in error.

The settlement sidesteps this question. The parties have agreed to come to terms “without admitting or conceding any liability or damages.”

According to the settlement, the U of I will sell its IP addresses. And if the U of I can’t close a sale — due to “routing, usage, liens, claims or other encumbrances resulting from actions or inactions by Involta” — the company agrees to buy the addresses.

It’s unclear how much the U of I could receive through a sale, but its lawsuit hints at the overall value of the addresses. Had Involta paid standard monthly leases for 93,000 addresses, the U of I said it would have received at least $2.4 million to $4.9 million.

The U of I had no immediate comment Tuesday on the settlement.