A bunch of folks have sent in the story that the ultra-popular "Bratz" dolls a href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/04/news/companies/bratz_dolls.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008120406" target="_new"have been banned by a judge/a following a long court case. The case revolved around a former employee of Mattel (makers of Barbie), who apparently developed the concept of the Bratz dolls while working there. However, he ended up going out on his own to produce them -- which is the history of an awful lot of American success stories over the years. Steve Wozniak developed the Apple computer while he was working at HP, but the company wasn't interested in making the machines. Robert Noyce (founder of both Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel) felt underappreciated at Shockley Transistor. There are plenty of stories of folks working at one company realizing that they could do a better job on their own -- and that leads to competition and innovation. There was also some evidence in the case suggesting the guy had actually developed the basic idea of Bratz well before he was even employed by Mattel, though it does sound like he continued to work on the idea on the side while employed there -- though only in designing the idea, not actually making the dolls. It was only after he had left Mattel that he actually moved forward with implementing the idea. To stop him from ever going to market with a doll concept he was thinking about for years just because he worked at Mattel seems ridiculous and very anti-competitive. br /br / However, even if you grant that Mattel has some sort "ownership" over the ideas in this guy's head while he worked at Mattel, it should only apply to the first generation of Bratz dolls. However, the court has gone even further, barring ieverything/i having to do with the Bratz dolls. Mattel, of course, is thrilled. Bratz had been the first really successful competitor to the Barbie franchise, and getting a court to shut it down completely is a huge win for Mattel. There will be an appeal, of course. The judge at least allowed the products to stay on the shelves through the holiday season, and it's quite likely that the appeals court will put a stay on the injunction until it hears the case. Even if it's eventually decided at higher courts that Bratz somehow infringe on Barbie intellectual property, it seems like a fine, rather than a complete injunction is a much more reasonable punishment.br /br /a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081204/1819123025.shtml"Permalink/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081204/1819123025.shtml#comments"Comments/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20081204/1819123025op=sharethis"Email This Story/abr / br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=5ceb49a7494f1162741abbd22b442cebp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=5ceb49a7494f1162741abbd22b442cebp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=5ceb49a7494f1162741abbd22b442ceb" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?a=cD3vo"img src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?i=cD3vo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~4/475343781" height="1" width="1"/

Chip maker Analog Devices Inc. named David A. Zinsner, 40, as its new chief financial officer, succeeding Joseph E. McDonough, who is retiring. Zinsner resigned as CFO of semiconductor maker Intersil Corp., where he worked for nine years and was finance chief since 2005, on Wednesday, shortly before he was named to the ADI post. He previously worked for Harris Corp., MCI Communications and Mellon Financial Corp. He will begin working at ADI on Jan. 12.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=5yyjO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=5yyjO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=r37qo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=r37qo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=XVOPo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=XVOPo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ibtimes/tech/~4/475125679" height="1" width="1"/

div class="rxbodyfield"p page="1" class="ArticleBody"With credit in a tight squeeze and the economy in free fall, the next few years should see the collapse of some small PC makers and a restructuring of the rest of the industry, according to an industry research firm./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Richard+Shim"Richard Shim/a , personal computing research manager at IDC, told Computerworld that he expects a consolidation of the market. However, he doesn#39;t think that the big PC players, like a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Hewlett-Packard+Company"Hewlett-Packard/a , a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Dell+Inc."Dell/a, and a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=Acer+Inc."Acer/a , will gobble up smaller hardware vendors. Instead, he said those smaller players will simply fold up shop as the faltering economy keeps companies and individuals from buying new computers./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"b[ Special report:#160;a href="http://www.infoworld.com/archives/t.jsp?N=samp;V=113008amp;source=fssr"IT and the financial crisis/a. ]/b/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"quot;It won#39;t be so much about acquisition, but the smaller players will just go away,quot; said Shim, adding that he thinks the industry could lose fewer than 10 companies. quot;The big players are feeling the hurt as well. Right now, everybody is beating each other up in price. If some are going to die off anyway, what#39;s the sense in buying them?quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Just yesterday, IDC reported it is projecting that worldwide a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicamp;articleId=9122298amp;intsrc=hm_list"PC sales will quickly drop/a off because the sagging economy is causing people to hold onto their savings while credit is unavailable. IDC noted that it expects PC shipments to inch upward by 3.8 percent in all of 2009, but added that the values of those shipments will drop by 5.3 percent. In the U.S., expectations are bleaker as IDC predicts that shipments here will decline by almost 3 percent in 2009 with low single-digit increases in the next few years./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Shim noted that he thinks MPC kicked off the consolidation early in November when the PC maker a target="_blank" href="http://www.mpccorp.com/about/media/press_releases.html?id=110708_1"filed for bankruptcy/a . In mid 2001, the business was sold by parent company Micron Technology, and later changed its name from Micron Electronics to MPC. A little more than a year ago, MPC bought Gateway#39;s professional business division./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"And MPC won#39;t be the only mid- to low-tier PC maker to fall, according to Shim. He said 2009, 2010 and maybe even 2011 will be tough years for the industry./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Just a few weeks ago, a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicamp;taxonomyName=processorsamp;articleId=9121080amp;taxonomyId=162amp;intsrc=kc_top"iSuppli#160;slashed/a its 2009 growth forecast for worldwide PC shipments by nearly two-thirds because of the deteriorating economy. The analyst firm is now projecting that worldwide PC shipments will rise by 4.3 percent in 2009, down from its previous forecast of 11.9 percent growth. a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/inform.do?command=searchamp;searchTerms=iSuppli+Corporation"iSuppli/a also adjusted its expectations for 2010, dropping its initial prediction of 9.4 percent growth to 7.1 percent./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"ISuppli#39;s adjustment to its PC forecast came on the heels of the firm downgrading its estimates for a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicamp;taxonomyName=processorsamp;articleId=9120852"global semiconductor revenue/a for the year. The researcher projected that 2008 semiconductor sales will decline by 2 percent to $266.6 billion, from about $272 billion in 2007. In October, a target="_blank" href="http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasicamp;taxonomyName=knowledge_centeramp;articleId=9116842"ISuppli had predicted/a that 2008 semiconductor sales would grow by 3.5 percent over last year#39;s. The researcher also predicted that the negative momentum will continue into the fourth quarter of this year, with the overall market expected to drop by 10.9 percent compared with the same quarter last year./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"Shim noted in an interview on Thursday that the economic crisis likely will reset many vendors#39; business models./pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"quot;If you change selling prices, you need to find new ways to do business, like skimping on quality or coming out with new models,quot; he explained. quot;A lot depends on how drastic the situation gets.quot;/pp page="2" class="ArticleBody"emComputerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate./em/p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c00466bb4f2ffde7e4aa7d2cd120a5ddp=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c00466bb4f2ffde7e4aa7d2cd120a5ddp=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c00466bb4f2ffde7e4aa7d2cd120a5dd style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

New chips from Advanced Micro Devices, Freescale Semiconductor, and Qualcomm may redefine the market for so-called Netbooks and ultraportables.

psmallSylvie Barak a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/"the Inquirer/a, Thursday 4 December 2008. 16:47:00/small/ppi holiday season all year round /i/ppEVERYONE LIKES having days off work, but being forced to take unpaid leave is hardly popular, and its something Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is asking its employees to do in order to cut costs and make it through the financial crisis..../pimg width='1' height='1' src='http://feeds.theinquirer.net/c/554/f/7127/s/27fd3bd/mf.gif' border='0'/div class='mf-viral'table border='0'trtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=TSMC employees forced to take unpaid leavelink=http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/12/04/tsmc-employees-forced-unpaid" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif" border="0" //a/tdtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=TSMC employees forced to take unpaid leavelink=http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/12/04/tsmc-employees-forced-unpaid" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif" border="0" //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853583305/u/89/f/7127/c/554/s/41931709/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853583305/u/89/f/7127/c/554/s/41931709/a2.img" border="0"//a

NXP, the independent semiconductor company founded by Philips, today unveiled a new global single-chip LCD TV platform, which allows viewers to enjoy HD digital TV and Internet content on mid-range TVs.

US telco FairPoint to start IPTV trials in Portsmouth IPTV News - UK December 3, 2008 - US telco FairPoint Communications is to start trialling a new IPTV service next January in the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, ... Commercial Satellite Industry Set to Grow Even in Troubled ... MarketWatch - USA Some countries have two, three and even five DTH platforms, not even counting cable or IPTV pay-TV services, stated French. The failure of a few of these ... Groups team for Chinese IPTV reference designs EETimes.com - USA LONDON mdash; Fabless semiconductor startup Mirics Semiconductor (Fleet, England) is partnering with wireless SoC specialist Spreadtrum to bring broadcast TV to ... FairPoint plans IPTV pilot in Portsmouth FierceIPTV - Washington,DC,USA FairPoint Communications is set to conduct an IPTV trial next month in Portsmouth, NH, which is expected to last about 90 days. ... Commercial Satellite Industry Set to Grow Even in Troubled ... MarketWatch - USA Some countries have two, three and even five DTH platforms, not even counting cable or IPTV pay-TV services, stated French. The failure of a few of these ... Groups team for Chinese IPTV reference designs EETimes.com - USA LONDON mdash; Fabless semiconductor startup Mirics Semiconductor (Fleet, England) is partnering with wireless SoC specialist Spreadtrum to bring broadcast TV to ... FairPoint plans IPTV pilot in Portsmouth FierceIPTV - Washington,DC,USA FairPoint Communications is set to conduct an IPTV trial next month in Portsmouth, NH, which is expected to last about 90 days. ... Fairpoint To Test IPTV In New Hampshire Converting FiOSTV from ... Dslreports - USA But unlike Verizon, whose FiOSTV is a hybrid coaxial/fiber system, Fairpoint apparently seems interested in running pure IPTV. Says the report: Itrsquo;s part of ... New South Asian IPTV Network Debuts Premier Television Content MarketWatch - USA TV-Desi is the first IPTV service dedicated to the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in North America delivering a television viewing experience ...

Slumping demand and excess capacity have caused semiconductor prices to plunge pushing Toshiba's chip business to a $639 million operating loss for the April-September period.

div style="FLOAT: right"img title="Hynix Semiconductor Develops 2Gb Mobile DRAM" alt="Hynix Semiconductor Develops 2Gb Mobile DRAM" hspace="5" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/hynix.jpg" vspace="5" border="0" //div pHynix Semiconductor has successfully developed 2Gb mobile DRAM chips via 54nm process technology, capable of hitting a maximum operating speed of 400Mbps at 1.2V power supply and is able to process up to 1.6 gigabytes per second with a 32-bit I/O. This new mobile DRAM is also on par with the JEDEC standard, making it suitable for use in next-generation MID (Mobile Internet Device) and UMPC (ultra mobile PC) devices. Mass production of this new mobile DRAM will begin in the first half of next year onwards. /p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/hynix_semiconductor_develops_2gb_mobile_dram.html"Hynix Semiconductor Develops 2Gb Mobile DRAM/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081203083810" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081203083810?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081203083810" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081203083810amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fhynix_semiconductor_develops_2gb_mobile_dram.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-L0DgSgJZklKaEu2c1BJkdzBXLU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-L0DgSgJZklKaEu2c1BJkdzBXLU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=TPolRrwt"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=AIvOYuvj"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=AIvOYuvj" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=KRkcxaCq"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=AwAiQ8B6"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=AwAiQ8B6" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=0xtAFfIP"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=0xtAFfIP" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/I2SfUkHvnIE" height="1" width="1"/