A Colorado photographer who sued Apple over images used in commercials to promote the iPhone and Apple TV has dropped the complaint, raising the possibility that he's reached a settlement with the digital media company.

Court records show that Louis Psihoyos withdrew his copyright lawsuit against Apple in early October and that the case has since been dismissed "with prejudice" -- a legal term meaning the lawsuit can't be re-filed.

Attorneys often agree to withdraw a case with prejudice following a settlement. Psihoyos said in an e-mail Monday that he wouldn't comment on the case. Apple officials couldn't immediately be reached.

Psihoyos originally sued Apple in June. He claimed in court papers that the company used "images nearly identical or substantially similar to (his) copyrighted image" to promote the iPhone and Apple TV -- Apple's on-demand video service.

Psihoyos' image showed a silhouetted person sitting in a chair, surrounded by banks of television screens. Apple's ads showed a similar bank of screens, without the person and with the Apple logo superimposed over the TVs, copies of the images included in court documents revealed.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado. Psihoyos lives in Boulder.

Psihoyos had claimed that he'd been in talks with Apple over a licensing deal for the image, but said the talks broke down.

To support his case, Psihoyos filed a brief from a University of Denver law professor that backed his claim. "The similarities between the protectable elements of Psihoyos' photograph and the images used in Apple's ad campaign are striking," wrote professor Viva Moffat, who teaches copyright law at the university's Sturm College of Law.

Psihoyos had been seeking unspecified damages.