SALT LAKE CITY – CirTran Corp., an EMS builder of consumer electronics products, today guided for a 114% hike in first quarter sales.
 
The company anticipates sales of approximately $3.7 million for the first quarter, an increase of approximately $2 million over last year.
 

WASHINGTON – Congress this week introduced into legislation The Patent Reform Act of 2007, a bill aimed at helping the filing process and to ease the financial burden to companies that infringe on existing patents.

The Senate bill is cosponsored by Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), while the House version is cosponsored by Howard Berman (D-CA) and Lamar Smith (R-TX).

The reform includes provisions to “balance” awards for damages, limiting them to only economic value of the improvement; establish fair standards for punitive damages; restrict forum shopping, and improve patent quality. In addition, the bill would create a “first-to-file” system (the American system is the only one in the world that still grants patents to the first inventor rather than the first to file an application); according to patentlyo.com, the bill makes it easier to file a patent application without the inventor's cooperation. Leahy says the bill creates a more streamlined and effective way of challenging the validity and enforceability of patents. He also claims, “American IP industries account for over half of all U.S. exports, represent 40 percent of our economic growth and employ 18 million Americans,” which makes strengthening intellectual property that much more important to economic growth.

To view the document, visit
http://www.thefireofgenius.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/coe07702_xml.pdf.
 
 

SAN JOSE – SEMI this week revised its January and February semiconductor equipment book-to-bills. Corrected figures for February show the three-month average for bookings was $1.4 billion, with billings at $1.43 billion, and a ratio of 0.98.

Corrected figures for January show the three-month average for bookings was $1.45 billion, with billings at $1.45 billion, and a ratio of 1.0.

The trade group had earlier reported book-to-bills of 1.04 and 1.05 for January and February, respectively.

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers.

WASHINGTON -- An English translation of the final Korea RoHS legislation, adopted April 2, is available.  

Information on differences between the draft bill and final bill (also in English) are available here.

The translations were made available by Eco-Frontier.

Separately, China’s Ministry of Commerce has promulgated Management Measures for Recycling Renewable Resources, which goes into effect May 1.

Links are here:
www.sepa.gov.cn/hjyw/200704/t20070409_102573.htm
www.sepa.gov.cn/law/gz/bmhb/200704/t20070409_102574.htm