An anonymous reader notes the considerable irony in Microsoft asking for relief from further discovery in the Windows Vista Capable debacle. This is the lawsuit that was recently allowed class-action status, and Microsoft wants the wheels of justice to stop while it appeals that designation. It’s simple to see why Microsoft wants to prevent further digging around in their and their OEMs’ email archives, with stories like this one from the NYTimes (registration might be required) revealing Redmond’s highly embarrassing internal emails to a mass audience.

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LeCaddie writes “Last week German investigators raided 51 exhibitor stands at CeBIT, the German information technology fair in Hanover, looking for goods suspected of infringing patents. Some 183 police, customs officers, and prosecutors raided the fair on Wednesday and carried off 68 boxes of electronic goods and documents including cellphones, navigation devices, digital picture frames, and flat-screen monitors. Of the 51 companies raided, 24 were Chinese. Most of the patents concerned were related to devices with MP3, MP4, and DVB standard functions for digital audio and video, blank CDs, and DVD copiers, police stated.” In the US there are no criminal penalties associated with patents, and such a raid could not be conducted, especially in the absence of a court ruling of infringement.

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Filed under: Forecasts, Industry, Competitive strategy, Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Toyota Motor Corp. (TM)

Volkswagen says that by 2010 it can produce 10 million automobiles and pass Toyota (NYSE: TM) and General Motors (NYSE: GM) as the world’s largest car company. According to the Sunday Times, “To those who advocate that closing a 3m vehicle gap (Toyota produced 9.4m last year) is a very tall order, company management explains that, in 2006, the number of conventional passenger automobiles made by Volkswagen and Toyota was fairly similar — 5.2m for Volkswagen and 5.5m for Toyota — and that the difference is made up by 4×4s, ‘people carriers’ and light trucks.”

Volkswagen only recently introduced a full range of these multi-purpose vehicles, which will play an important part in its future growth

VW may find that things don’t go as planned. As a new entrant to the pick-up and SUV markets, the company will find global competition for not just Toyota and GM, but also Ford (NYSE: F), Nissan, and Honda (NYSE: HMC). Most massive countries also have local automobile manufacturers who might not be anxious to give up a large piece of their business.

While VW might have a opportunity to get a reasonable piece of the auto sales in massive countries like China, it has nearly no market share in the world’s largest car-buying nation, the U.S. Taking away business from a desperate company like Ford and a successful company like Toyota may be almost impossible.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

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Filed under: Industry, Competitive strategy, China, Boeing Co (BA), Northrop Grumman (NOC)

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) and Airbus go toe to tor for nearly very major commercial airline contract in the world. They haul each other into court over international trade practice questions. For pure blood sport, the competition can hardly be matched.

Over the course of the last week, the battle between the two companies moved up a notch as the Air Force gave a $35 billion tanker program to Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) and EADS, the parent of Airbus. Members of Congress might try to keep the deal with Boeing, and the issue should be messy for several months.

While Boeing and Airbus beat the living daylights out of one another, China is planning to begin to build its own huge commercial aircraft. China is one of the biggest markets for the two airplane company leaders, and as the need of huge jets there increases, the Asian company was going to be a meal ticket that might last for decades.

Things are not going as planned. According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), “China has confirmed plans to set up a company to make large passenger airplanes.” The paper also writes that Boeing thinks China will need over 3,300 new jets by 2026.

China could be making its own planes by then, leaving Boeing and Airbus to bicker over military contracts.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

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State Government Employment and Payroll Data
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souls writes “The folks at Wikileaks are calling for a boycott against eNom, Inc., one of the top internet domain registrars, which WikiLeaks claims is involved in systematic domain censoring. On Feb 28th eNom shut down wikileaks.info, one of the many Wikileaks mirrors held by a volunteer as a side-effect of the court proceedings around wikileaks.org. In addition, eNom was the registrar that shut off access to a Spanish travel agent who showed up on a US Treasury watch list. Wikileaks calls for a ‘global boycott of eNom and its parent Demand Media, its owners, executives and their affiliated companies, interests and holdings, to make clear such behavior can and won’t be tolerated within the boundaries of the Internet and its global community.’”

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An anonymous reader writes “Despite all the emphasis on protecting Olympic copyrights in China this year, the official web site of the Beijing Olympics features a Flash game that’s a blatant copy of one of the games developed at The Pencil Farm. Compare the game on the Olympic site with ‘Snow Day’ at The Pencil Farm.”

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Finance: Academic Areas: Stanford GSB
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Finance Group - Haas School of Business
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Edis Krad writes “While RealID in the US is a threat whose implementation is a ways in the future, the Japanese long ago implemented something similar; and there has been very tiny complaint raised about it. The Juki Net (Residents Registration Network — link in Japanese) has been silently developing since 1992. The system involves an 11-digit very special number to identify every citizen in Japan, and the data stored against that ID covers name, address, date of birth, and gender. Many Japanese citizens seem to be oblivious that such a government-run network exists. Juki Net had a spotlight shone on it recently because a number of citizens around the country sued against it, citing concerns of information misuse or leakage. And while an Osaka court ruled against the system, the Japanese Supreme Court has just ruled it isn’t unconstitutional, on the grounds that the data will be used in a bona-fide manner and there’s no risk of leakage. While there is a longstanding registration system for us foreigners in Japan, what astonishes me is how the government can secretly implement such a system for its citizens, and how tiny concern the media and Japanese citizens in general display about the privacy implications.”

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palegray.net writes “Threat Level brings us the story of the US Air Force’s use of the DMCA to forcibly remove a ‘Cyber Command’ recruitment video that they had previously thanked Threat Level for running. The article notes that US government works are not even subject to copyright, but this fact didn’t stop YouTube from caving and taking down the video.”

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