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Silicon Graphics which is now known as Graphics Properties has sued top mobile manufacturers Apple, Sony, HTC and LG over patent violation over the sale of their mobile phones and other electronic devices.

The lawsuit has been filed in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware.

The patent at issue relates to a computer graphics process that turns text and images into pixels to be displayed on screens.

According to the lawsuits, the defendants’ infringing devices include Apple’s iPhone and the HTC EVO4G, LG Thrill, Research in Motion Torch, Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy S II, and Sony Xperia Play smartphones.

Graphics Properties said that unless the alleged infringements are halted, it will suffer irreparable harm. The lawsuits seek to stop the sale of infringing products and also seek reasonable royalties and other damages.

HTC spokeswoman Lori Rodney, LG spokesman John Taylor, Research in Motion spokeswoman Tenille Kennedy and Sony spokeswoman Sandra Genelius declined to comment on the substance of their companies’ respective lawsuits. Apple and Samsung did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Silicon Graphics filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and sold much of its operations to Rackable Systems Inc. The remaining operations are based in New Rochelle, New York, and are owned by private investment firms and other investors, according to the complaints.

The lawsuits are all in the U.S. District Court, District of Delaware. They are Graphics Properties Holdings Inc v. Apple Inc, No. 12-00385; Graphics Properties Holdings Inc v. HTC Corp et al, No. 12-00387; Graphics Properties Holdings Inc. v. LG Electronics Inc et al, No. 12-00389; Graphics Properties Holdings Inc v. Research in Motion Ltd et al, No. 12-00386; Graphics Properties Holdings Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co et al, No. 12-00388; and Graphics Properties Holdings Inc v. Sony Corp et al, No. 12-00390.

The financial overlord has said now is the best time for this generation to buy stocks. Goldman Sachs’s chief global equity strategist, Peter Oppenheimer, believes that this is the time where the investment made will give highest returns for this generation.

In a research note out this morning, “The Long Good Buy,” Goldman’s chief global equity strategist, Peter Oppenheimer, unveils a whopper:

“The prospects for future returns in equities relative to bonds are as good as they’ve been in a generation.”

In one fell swoop, Oppenheimer has not only called out the analysts that we just highlighted for being 6-months late in supporting the current rally, but raised the ante by calling for more of the same, for the foreseeable future. Specifically, “a steady upward trajectory over the next few years.”

“It’s a curious time to do it,” Macke says in the attached video. “They’re either very, very late or prescient as all get out.”

The heart of the call is really about bonds, in that Oppenheimer’s preference for equities is couched in a belief that rising bond yields are going to basically ruin fixed income returns forever.

Truthfully, there are so many variables at play that mega-calls like this can be unhelpful since you need to wait around 20 years to see if they’re right or wrong. How can anyone expect to be able to reasonably predict where earnings, the economy, interest rates, the political climate or geopolitical events will be next year, let alone in 10 or 20 years from now.

So, as much as this bold call will surely have it’s moments of looking good and bad over the coming years, you can count me as an unmoved Muppet.

Apple said it will be announcing its decision on what it will be doing with its ~$100 Billion cash (That is more then what the US Treasury has) on 19th March 2012.

Apple could bail-out/invest in other areas rather then in Technology, after all it is having all these surplus cash just laying around doing nothing.

Analysts expect Apple to institute a dividend. It can easily afford one, since it had $97.6 billion in cash and securities at the end of last year. That would be enough for a $100 one-time dividend for every shareholder, but analysts expect the company to institute a modest recurring dividend.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer will discuss the decision on a conference call at 9 a.m. Eastern time (1300 GMT) Monday morning, the company said late Sunday.

A dividend would reward shareholders and open ownership of Apple shares to a wider range of funds. Many “value-oriented” funds are not allowed to buy stocks that don’t pay dividends.

Analysts say the lack of a dividend or other meaningful way of using the cash has held down Apple’s share price.

Oppenheimer said on a quarterly conference call with analysts in January that the board was in “active” discussions on ways to use the cash. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, haunted by lean years in the mid-1990s, likely stood in the way of returning cash to shareholders. Jobs died in October.

Partly in anticipation of a dividend, Apple’s stock has risen 37 percent since the Jan. 24 conference call, closing much of the gap between analyst price targets and the actual stock price. In February, Apple shares broke the $500 level for the first time. Last week, they briefly rose above $600.

Apple is the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, with a market capitalization of $545 billion.

Its shares closed Friday at $585.57, up 1 cent on the day.

Swiss Banks are known for their secrecy, for decades they have helped protect secrets and in modern times become a safe heaven for corrupt people to hide their money from the governments. Now the US Government is working hard to make sure nobody stacks any more secret cash, no more tax evaders.

Switzerland’s oldest private bank, Wegelin & Co., which survived Napoleon and two world wars couldn’t really handle US’s pressure. After the US Department of Justice indicted the bank on charges of helping Americas hide over $1.2 Billion from US tax authorities, it was sold to it’s rival, Raiffeisen Group. This was the first time in history a bank has been indicted on such charges.

But it is not just Wegelin that is facing the heat, US is after every bank that promotes secrecy.

On March 4, the Swiss parliament approved an amendment to the country’s existing tax accord with the U.S., which, when ratified by the U.S. Senate, will give the American government unprecedented access to accounts held by its citizens in Switzerland. While the existing agreement has long allowed the release of tax information in cases of proven wrongdoing, various stumbling blocks, like different interpretations of tax evasion under Swiss and American laws, often slowed or even halted the process. (Evasion is a civil, not a criminal, offense in Switzerland.)

The amended treaty will now allow U.S. authorities to identify American tax evaders who exhibit certain “behavioral patterns” more easily. That includes stashing undeclared money in banks, “dummy” corporations, trusts and foundations created specifically to hide these assets. The new treaty will also allow U.S. authorities to request information from foreign banks that don’t do business on American soil but have U.S. clients. Banks and account holders who are found to be hiding undeclared U.S. assets will be forced to pay a substantial fine to the American government.

“This is a strike at the heart of the Swiss banking sector and a major breakthrough for the U.S.,” says Teodoro Cocca, an adjunct professor at the Swiss Finance Institute, a private foundation created by Switzerland’s banking and finance community in cooperation with leading Swiss universities. Cocca warns that the pressure on Switzerland, which has long prided itself on its banking-secrecy rules, will now increase dramatically if other countries “also demand the same exchange of information rights.”

Both the Swiss government and Swiss Bankers Association welcomed the new treaty, hoping it will finally end the long-running tax dispute with the U.S. But not everyone in Switzerland is happy about it. The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) argues that the agreement is a breach of constitutional privacy rights and a brazen attempt by a cash-strapped U.S. government eager to fill its coffers with tax revenue. “Americans disregard rights of others just to be able to pay off their huge debt,” the party claims on its website, adding that American authorities are “hypocrites” for pressuring Swiss banks while thousands of “dummy” companies set up in Delaware are helping U.S. corporations evade taxes in their own country.

While the long-term impact of the new treaty remains unknown, the U.S. government has made at least a couple things clear: Swiss banks will have to change the ways they operate if they want to stay on Washington’s good side, and Americans hoping to hide their wealth in Switzerland can certainly no longer bank on secrecy.

Looks like US is not comfortable with anyone having secrets except itself.

The economy is better ? Looks like it is to the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve taking into account the recent burst in employment and has concluded that the economy is heading in the right direction and decided not to do any thing to stimulate it.

The Fed noted in a statement after its one-day meeting Wednesday that the unemployment rate has declined notably and should continue to fall. It also said strains in the global financial markets have eased, though it warned they continue to pose a threat.

Further hiring gains could put pressure on policymakers to rethink a plan to keep short-term interest rates near zero until at least late 2014.

Still, the Fed stuck with that timeframe in the statement. It said that while prices of crude oil and gasoline will push up inflation temporarily, longer-term inflation should remain stable — repeating a view expressed by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke earlier this month.

The statement was approved on a 9-1. Atlanta Fed President Jeffrey M. Lacker dissenting for the second straight meeting. The statement said Lacker doesn’t “anticipate that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate through late 2014.”

Stocks added to early gains after the statement was released. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 110 points before the Fed statement. It climbed 20 points more within five minutes of the statement.

Since the Fed’s last meeting in late January, a stream of positive economic reports has suggested the economy is doing better than the Fed anticipated.

Employers added 734,000 jobs from December through February, the best three months of hiring in two years. That’s lowered the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent.

Consumers are more confident and have stepped up retail spending. Auto sales are rising. And the stock market keeps climbing.

Despite the brightening prospects, unemployment remains historically high — something Bernanke mentioned in testimony to Congress last month, when he said, “The job market remains far from normal.”

Bernanke also said consumer spending and confidence remain less than healthy, inflation-adjusted pay gains are low and credit is still tight for many. As long as they are, Bernanke suggested, unemployment might not fall much further.

Bernanke’s comments and remarks from other Fed officials suggest that the Fed plans to maintain its efforts to keep rates low to fuel growth.

Low rates are intended to encourage consumers and businesses to borrow and spend more. Lower yields also lead some investors to shift money out of bonds and into stocks.

Most economists don’t think the Fed will retreat anytime this year from its late-2014 target for any rate increase. Some note that threats to the economy remain from Europe’s debt crisis and the run-up in gasoline prices.

Eventually, the Fed will feel compelled to raise rates to curb inflation as the economy heats up. But some analysts think the Fed is reluctant to signal an eventual shift toward higher rates before it’s close to a change. Signaling a change too soon might cause investors to push interest rates up before the Fed is sure the economic recovery will last.

Is the Federal Reserve making the right decision ?

Churches are not in good terms with banks as banks are foreclosing churches in a record high numbers as Churches fail to make payments.

The surge in church foreclosures represents a new wave of distressed property seizures triggered by the 2008 financial crash, analysts say, with many banks no longer willing to grant struggling religious organizations forbearance.

Since 2010, 270 churches have been sold after defaulting on their loans, with 90 percent of those sales coming after a lender-triggered foreclosure, according to the real estate information company CoStar Group.

In 2011, 138 churches were sold by banks, an annual record, with no sign that these religious foreclosures are abating, according to CoStar. That compares to just 24 sales in 2008 and only a handful in the decade before.

The church foreclosures have hit all denominations across America, black and white, but with small to medium size houses of worship the worst. Most of these institutions have ended up being purchased by other churches.

The highest percentage have occurred in some of the states hardest hit by the home foreclosure crisis: California, Georgia, Florida and Michigan.

“Churches are among the final institutions to get foreclosed upon because banks have not wanted to look like they are being heavy handed with the churches,” said Scott Rolfs, managing director of Religious and Education finance at the investment bank Ziegler.

Church defaults differ from residential foreclosures. Most of the loans in question are not 30-year mortgages but rather commercial loans that typically mature after just five years when the full balance becomes due immediately.

Its common practice for banks to refinance such loans when they come due. But banks have become increasingly reluctant to do that because of pressure from regulators to clean up their balance sheets, said Rolfs.

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