TECHNOLOGY

BLACKBERRY PARENT RIM COURT DATE SET FOR FEBRUARY 24 Research In Motion and NTP will appear in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on February 24 for their long-running patent-dispute case.

RIM, maker of the popular BlackBerry wireless email devices, and NTP, a Virginia patent-holding concern, have been immersed in a patent-infringment battle that could result in a court-ordered shutdown of BlackBerry sales and service in America.

– Dow Jones Newswires

GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE IN CHINA CENSORS SENSITIVE TOPICS SHANGHAI, China – Google Inc. launched a search engine in China yesterday that censors material about human rights, Tibet, and other topics sensitive to Beijing – defending the move as a trade-off granting Chinese greater access to other information. Within minutes of the launch of the new site bearing China’s Web suffix “.cn,” searches for the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement showed scores of sites omitted and users directed to articles condemning the group posted on Chinese government Web sites.

– Associated Press

CURRENCY

AMERICA, FRANCE DIFFER ON HOW TO PRESS CHINA ON CURRENCY REFORM America and France differed on how hard to push China to revalue its currency, exposing a split in the Group of Seven industrial nations and giving the world’s most populous nation scope to delay letting the yuan strengthen.

“They are on the road to reform but need to move faster,” said Tim Adams, the U.S. Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, in an interview at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, yesterday. French Finance Minister Thierry Breton said in a separate interview that Chinese officials should move “at their own pace.”

The yuan has gained just 0.6% against the dollar “since China revalued the currency by 2.1% and ended a decade-old peg on July 21, failing to satisfy major trading partners who say an undervalued currency gives Chinese exporters an unfair trade advantage China’s economy grew 9.9% in 2005, passing Britain and France as the world’s fourth largest.

The differences between America and France contrast with the united front presented by the Group of Seven before China abandoned its decade-old peg to the dollar in July. In April 2005, the G7 urged China to introduce “more flexibility in exchange rates.” The countries dropped that language from its official statement in September, two months after China moved.

– Bloomberg News

PHILANTHROPY

JACK WELCH GIVES LARGEST-EVER GIFT TO SACRED HEART UNIVERSITY FAIRFIELD, Conn. – The retired chairman of General Electric, Jack Welch, is making the largest gift in Sacred Heart University’s history to help students in financial need and to foster faculty development and research, university officials said yesterday. SHU, based in Fairfield, announced it will name its College of Business after Mr. Welch, who has agreed to volunteer his advice and guidance. The university refused to disclose the amount of the gift.

“Business students across the globe know and study Jack Welch,” SHU’s president, Anthony Cernera, said. “Clearly, he could have chosen to partner with any institution of higher education in the world. He chose Sacred Heart because he recognizes in us enduring principles that lead to successful business practitioners and successful human beings.”

– Associated Press

IN BRIEF

Hedge funds suffered their first quarterly withdrawals in more than a decade, as average investment returns in 2005 fell below 10% for the second straight year … Microsoft said it will license the source code for its Windows operating system as part of an effort to resolve a dispute with European antitrust regulators.

– Bloomberg News