jeremypinc.com

The? US International Trade Commission Sides has ruled on Apple?s favor in a case that involves fundamental patents like ?tap to call? ?or ?tap to schedule a calendar appointment? from within an email. While very simple, those are features that I consider to be basic and fundamental to the ease-of-use of a smartphone.? If Apple was to win this decisively and irreversibly, this would dampen the productivity of every other mobile platforms.

In this case, HTC is on the other side of the dispute, and stands to have to modify all its smartphones if the ruling sticks. This is bad news for HTC, which has recently but short its growth projections and faces a very tough fight against Samsung in the Android space. Unless there is a reversal of fortune, the ruling could prevent HTC from importing handsets in the USA on April 19.

And obviously, Apple would not stop with HTC. Strong with a precedent, it would likely seek to ban other phones and hinder other competitors. Google has bought Motorola Mobility for $17B exactly to avoid this type of scenario as Motorola has a broad portfolio of patent that could serve as ammunition in a patent war.

Apple is facing stiff competition in the smartphone pace, and although it enjoys healthy growth and margins, it has already be overrun by Android in terms of market share, and faces the prospect of having a second front open by the Microsoft/Nokia alliance.? As its overall market share has already begun to decline (in percentage), so the time for drastic measure is now. [via New york times]

Source: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/12/united-states-international-trade-commission-apple-wins-legal/

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HONOLULU (Reuters) ? Japan’s readiness to join Asia-Pacific free trade talks gave momentum on Friday to global efforts to reinvigorate trade ties and boosted President Barack Obama’s drive for U.S. leadership in the world’s most economically dynamic region.

The Obama administration is seeking to reset relations with Pacific nations and offer a counterweight to China’s growing power at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit this weekend in Honolulu.

“We obviously believe that the world’s strategic and economic center of gravity will be the Asia-Pacific for the 21st century and it will be up to American statecraft over the next decade to lock in a substantially increased investment — diplomatic, economic, strategic and otherwise,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after meeting APEC ministers.

Obama — who also sees increased trade opportunities as an engine for U.S. job creation that could help him through a troubled 2012 reelection bid — arrives later on Friday to host the annual gathering of APEC’s 21 members, which account for more than half of the world’s output.

With Europe’s debt crisis sending shock waves around the globe, this year’s APEC meeting is also shaping up as a forum to press the euro zone to sort out its problems and for APEC countries to bolster defenses against the fallout.

“The stakes are high for all of us,” Clinton said earlier.

Fostering free trade is one of the few steps that leaders can take to spur global growth when fiscal and monetary measures are virtually exhausted in many developed countries. Pushing ahead with regional trade pacts has gained importance now the Doha round of global talks have ground to a halt.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced earlier in Tokyo that the world’s third-largest economy wants to join U.S.-led talks to forge a Transpacific Partnership among nine nations.

Its addition holds out the prospect of creating a huge regional market, around 40 percent bigger than the 27-nation European Union. Mexico and Canada quickly signaled their interest in exploring joining the talks, though they made no commitment to do so.

Tokyo’s move marked a breakthrough in Washington’s efforts to seize the initiative from Beijing, which has made deep economic inroads in the region.

“As a trading country that has built its prosperity of today, we must take advantage of growth in the Asia-Pacific region,” Noda said in Tokyo before leaving for the summit.

But China, frequently at odds with the United States on trade and currency issues, gave a cool reception to the initiative. A commentary in China’s state-owned news agency Xinhua said Washington was using the proposed pact as a way to enhance its influence in Asia on its terms.

In a tense exchange at an APEC trade ministers news conference that pointed up the depth of U.S.-China rivalry, Assistant Commerce Minister Yu Jianhua said Beijing had not been asked to join the TPP talks but would seriously consider if it were invited.

But U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk insisted the pact was “not designed to be a closed clubhouse … it is also not one where you should wait for an invitation.”

He said national leaders would announce the “broad outlines” of a deal at the summit and voiced U.S. hopes it could be the basis for the long-term goal of an APEC-wide free trade zone.

Japan’s interest still faces significant hurdles.

Kirk welcomed Tokyo’s move but insisted it must be prepared to meet the “high standards” of liberalized trade by reducing barriers to agriculture, services and manufacturing. Japan’s farmers have proved a formidable domestic opponents to removing its large subsidies.

Japan also must overcome skepticism in the U.S. Congress and among American business and labor leaders. At least one major U.S. company, Ford Motor Co, said it opposed letting Japan into the negotiations because it believes Tokyo is not prepared to address barriers to importing American cars.

Australia hailed Japan’s interest in a comprehensive agreement, with Trade Minister Craig Emerson calling it “an extremely positive development.”

Other countries in the TPP trade talks are New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei, Chile and Peru.

BUSINESS APPLIES PRESSURE

Asia-Pacific chief executives pressed world leaders to step up free trade initiatives in a “volatile” economic climate that they fear could spawn protectionist sentiment.

With Europe in danger of slipping into recession and U.S. growth sluggish, Asia represents the best bet for keeping the world economy on track.

Senior officials drafting an APEC communique agreed on Thursday on the need for Europe to act more forcefully to sort out its debt woes and for Asia-Pacific countries to bolster themselves against the potential spillover from the euro zone.

But there was no sign the summit would offer any concrete measures to help the euro zone cope with its crisis.

APEC leaders, who begin meetings on Saturday, are expected to keep the heat on China over what many see as an artificially undervalued yuan that hurts competitors. The currency issue has been a major irritant between Washington and Beijing.

Finance ministers pledged to take steps to strengthen growth and move faster toward market-based pricing of their currencies. Even so, China’s deputy finance minister Wang Jun dampened prospects for a faster appreciation of the yuan.

“Facing current economic conditions, the Chinese government will continue to adopt proactive financial policy and stable currency policy,” Jun said, according to the state news agency Xinhua. But he did commit to quicken the pace of China’s move over the longer term toward a domestic consumer market, in balance with its export-driven economy.

(Writing by Stella Dawson and Matt Spetalnick; Additional reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka and Michael Martina; Editing by John O’Callaghan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/japan/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111112/bs_nm/us_apec

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WASHINGTON ? House and Senate trade leaders said Thursday they were looking at a compromise solution to extend a worker assistance program that has become the primary obstacle to congressional approval of free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

The White House, the business community and most lawmakers support the long-pending trade deals, but the White House and Democrats say extension of Trade Adjustment Assistance must be part of any trade vote. Republicans insist that TAA, a half-century-old program that offers financial aid and retraining to workers dislocated by global competition, has no place in the trade bills.

But as the two committees in charge of trade ? Finance in the Senate and Ways and Means in the House ? met Thursday to consider and approve draft versions of the trade bills, the chairmen of both panels held out hope for a compromise.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he did not rule out other options apart from attaching the worker assistance program to the trade bills “as long as they provide certainty that the bipartisan deal on the assistance program will be enacted in tandem” with the free trade agreements.

Minutes later, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said that if the White House sends up its final version of the trade bills without the assistance program, he would hold a vote on those bills and a separate bill on the assistance program the same day.

Speaker John Boehner “knows and I know that we have to deal with TAA,” Camp said.

Still, the potential for TAA to wreck chances for passing the trade bills was evident. The South Korea draft legislation was approved in both committees but only after every Senate Finance Republican voted against it following defeat of an amendment by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to unlink it from the assistance program. Every Ways and Means Democrat voted against the South Korea bill because the assistance program was not on the agenda.

The two committees also approved the Panama and Colombia draft bills, although House Democrats protested the omission from the Colombian bill a reference to a plan by which Bogota commits to end violence against labor leaders. The bills now go back to the administration, which will draw up final versions to be submitted to Congress.

The Trade Adjustment Assistance program was created in the Kennedy administration to help workers laid off because of foreign competition. It was expanded in 2009 as part of the economic stimulus package to include service industry workers and to extend subsidies to help laid-off workers buy health insurance. Those expansions expired in February and the White House, joining many Democrats, has insisted that renewal of the assistance must be part of the trade bills.

Camp, Baucus and the White House recently agreed on a scaled-down plan to extend the assistance program. Among the cutbacks, it would reduce financial payments to assistance program recipients from 156 weeks to 117 weeks plus 13 weeks for those needing extra training. The health coverage tax credit is reduced from 80 percent under the 2009 law to 72.5 percent and would be eliminated at the end of 2013. Previous to 2009 it was 65 percent.

Public sector workers would no longer be eligible for TAA programs under the compromise. Last year more than 200,000 workers made use of the program at a cost of almost $1 billion.

The top Democrat on the Ways and Means trade subcommittee, Jim McDermott of Washington, was skeptical of proposals to move TAA as separate legislation. If the assistance program “doesn’t go with these agreements it will die in the Senate,” he said. The ranking Democrat on the committee, Sander Levin of Michigan, urged his colleagues to vote against all three trade deals if the assistance program was not incorporated.

A McDermott amendment to attach the assistance program to the Panama agreement was defeated 22-15 on a party-line vote.

Similarly in the Senate the majority Democrats rejected an amendment by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., that would have required the three trade agreements to go into force before the expanded benefits under the assistance program could be affected.

All three trade agreements were signed during the George W. Bush administration, but never advanced in the then-Democrat controlled Congress.

The Obama administration moved to renegotiate key elements of all three deals, gaining commitments from South Korea to improve access to U.S. autos, from Panama to change laws that fostered tax havens and from Colombia to improve its labor rights record.

Still, Ways and Means Democrats were unhappy with the administration for its decision not to include in the Colombia bill a reference to the “Action Plan” by which the Bogota government is increasing penalties for violence against labor leaders and preventing the suppression of labor rights advocates. An amendment by ranking Democrat Sander Levin of Michigan to add a provision that the president must determine that Colombia is carrying out the plan was defeated 22-13.

The business community has pushed for quick approval of all three, noting that South Korea finalized a trade agreement with the European Union on July 1 and that a Colombia-Canada trade agreement will go into force next month.

“U.S. farmers and ranchers, for example, have already lost more than $1 billion in sales to Colombia due to delays in approval of the agreement with that country,” more than 30 business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a letter Wednesday to congressional leaders.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said U.S. wheat exports to Colombia are “going to evaporate completely” with the advent of that country’s agreement with Canada.

Economists say the trade pacts, which would lower or eliminate tariffs on almost all U.S. exports to those countries, could increase U.S. exports by $13 billion a year and create tens of thousands of jobs. The deal with South Korea is the biggest free trade agreement since the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. U.S. exports to Korea could grow by one-third, increasing more than $10 billion a year.

Under the unique rules for considering trade bills, Finance and Ways and Means lawmakers offer recommendations on changing draft versions of legislation to implement the pacts. The White House, after further negotiations, then will submit final versions of the bills to Congress for votes, with no amendments allowed.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110707/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_trade

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