Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: New Patents From Google Shore up HTC’s Defenses

Armed with new patents transferred from Google, HTC has filed a new lawsuit against Apple and amended two previous legal complaints.
HTC filed the new lawsuit against Apple Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. HTC accuses Apple of infringing four patents in a range of products and services including Macintosh computers, iPhones, iPods, iPads, iTunes, MobileMe and iCloud.
The four patents were originally assigned to Motorola but were all transferred to Google either late last year or early this year. Then, last week, all four patents were transferred to HTC.
HTC did not respond to questions about whether it bought the patents from Google or if Google gave it the patents.
In addition, HTC on Wednesday amended its complaint against Apple with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to assert five former Google patents. Those patents originated with Palm and Openwave, were transferred to Google and last week were transferred to HTC.
HTC also amended another previous suit, filed in Delaware, to add the new patents to that complaint.

Brightbridge Wealth Management Headlines: Logitech’s acting CEO warns on profit

(Reuters) – Logitech, the world’s largest computer mouse maker, issued its second profit warning in eight weeks, slashing its forecast for full-year profit and sales after a review by its acting chief executive, sending its shares down 12 percent.
Logitech, which also makers speakers, webcams and keyboards, said on Thursday it expected operating income of about $90 million for its 2011/12 year to end-March, compared with a previous target to meet or beat last year’s $143 million.
Citing the current weak economic environment in mature markets and the company’s product offering, Logitech cut its sales forecast to $2.4 billion from $2.5 billion, having cut it from $2.6 billion in July when announcing CEO Gerald Quindlen had resigned after weak first-quarter trading.
Chairman Guerrino De Luca was named acting CEO at the time.
The company said on Thursday gross margin in its fiscal third and fourth quarters should be well above the full-year average.
Logitech shares, which had lost more than half their value this year, were down 12 percent at 0932 GMT.