News Briefs (Feb. 20, 2006)

LED Lighting Fixtures Inc. (LLF) of Durham, N.C., announced that its most recent recessed can light fixture was tested by an independent lab as providing 700 lm of white light at a color temperature of 2900 K, with a color rendering index of 93. Total power supplied to the fixture from a residential voltage, AC power source was 13 W. The fixture efficiency equaled approximately 54 lm per watt of warm white light. Company officials said the results break the final performance barrier required to move LEDs into general light applications; LLF says it will begin manufacturing the new light fixtures, designed to look like traditional fixtures, by the end of this year. . . . Israel-based Orbotech Ltd., a maker of automated optical inspection (AOI) systems for the electronics industry, announced that it has signed an agreement with APCB Inc. of Taiwan worth $6 million for the purchase of multiple Discovery AOI systems and LP-9008 series laser plotters for use in APCB's bare printed circuit board (PCB) production facilities located in Taiwan and China. APCB develops products from PCB for LED display to multilayer boards for PCs and their peripheral equipment. . . . Waters Corp. of Milford, Mass., a maker of liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis instruments, and Agilent Technologies Deutschland GmbH announced they have resolved the HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography)-related litigation between them. Under the settlement, Waters was found by a UK court to have infringed on an Agilent patent while creating the pump technology used in its Alliance HPLC instruments. Waters stopped using the disputed technology in 2002 and under the settlement can continue selling Alliance instruments in the UK. In return for being released from any more infringement claims with the company, Waters also agreed to pay Agilent £3.5 million (approximately $6 million). Waters still faces similar patent infringement actions in France and Germany.