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MEXICO, US SETTLE TELECOM DISPUTE

MEXICO CITY - Mexico has agreed to change some telecoms rules to end domestic leader Telmex's exclusive right to fix interconnection phone fees, as part of a settlement with the US. 

The move will end a spat between the two neighbors after the World Trade Organization ruled that Mexico had not followed through on promises to open its telecoms market.
 
In effect, Mexico agreed to modify the necessary rules to eliminate the proportional return system, as well as a rule that grants Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex) the right to negotiate interconnection fees with telecom carriers using its network. 
 
Proportional return is a system where operators divide connection fees for calls from the US in the same proportion as the share of the outgoing telephone traffic from Mexico to the US.
 
The system greatly favored Telmex because of its leading position in its domestic market.
 
As part of the agreement Mexico will continue to ban by-pass practices, where foreign carriers disguise long-distance calls as data to avoid paying interconnection fees to Mexican operators. 

Mexico has also agreed to issue new rules for long-distance service re-sellers.
 
INTEL EXPANDS IN RUSSIA

SANTA CLARA - Intel has effectively taken over two companies specializing in high-technology R&D in Russia and, in the process, more than doubled its research efforts in one of the company's most important emerging markets.
 
The chipmaker has agreed to take over engineering design teams and license intellectual property from Elbrus MCST and Unipro, two companies specializing in research on semiconductor design, compilers, hardware design and Java, among other technologies.
 
Elbrus has been working on 32-bit and 64-bit processors that conceivably could compete against Intel's chips, according to various Russian news reports.
 
"Instead of outsourcing to them, we hired them," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said. "This is a rare opportunity, where you can get intact design teams."
 
Intel is not buying the two companies, but it is hiring most of their engineers and has licensed the intellectual property of both businesses, Mulloy said. Elbrus MCST and Unipro were privately held, but originally grew out of Russian government projects.
 
Intel often works with Russian server manufacturer Kraftway, and it has targeted Russia, along with India and China, as one of its three major growth markets.
 
Last year, the chipmaker started to make its first venture investments in several Russian companies.
 
For its part, the Russian government is trying to make the country more attractive to Western technology businesses as well as to its own entrepreneurs.

Earlier this year, it issued decrees that allow inventors at state-sponsored research institutions to keep patents generated from their work. Before that, the patent rights reverted to the institutions.

In all, around 500 employees will join Intel as a result of the transaction. The company already has a research center in Nizhny Novograd that employs around 400 workers. That Intel operation got started in a similar manner to the new ones, said Mulloy: It was an independent facility that the company scooped up.
 
Elbrus and Unipro operate research facilities in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk.
 
AMPEX TAKES SANYO TO COURT OVER PATENTS

REDWOOD CITY - Ampex Corporation has filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission seeking an exclusion order barring Sanyo Electric Company Ltd. from the importation and sale of digital still cameras and cellular phones with digital image storage and retrieval capabilities into the US due to the Japan-based company's  "unauthorized use of the Company's intellectual property."

According to Ampex, the requested exclusion order would apply to digital still cameras and cellular phones with digital image storage and retrieval capabilities manufactured by Sanyo and sold in the US under its own brand name as well as products manufactured by Sanyo under OEM agreements and sold under other manufacturers' brand names.

Sanyo is the world's largest manufacturer of digital still cameras with sales accounting for approximately 30% of the global market.

In addition, the company filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware seeking unspecified damages from Sanyo for patent infringement.
 
Ampex has been in active negotiations with Sanyo and other major manufacturers of digital still cameras in an attempt to negotiate commercially acceptable running royalties on future shipments as well as payment of royalties on shipments for prior periods.

According to a statement, Ampex "intends to offer a license of its digital still camera patents to other manufacturers that it has previously notified of their infringement. In the event it is unable to negotiate acceptable license terms with them, the Company may seek to enforce its patents by instituting additional litigation."

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