More young American adults are leaving the nest

WASHINGTON — After riding out the tough economy in their parents' basements, more young American adults are starting to break out on their own, pushing up the nation's mobility rate and giving an important boost to the housing market and the broader recovery.

Thanks to improving job prospects and super-low mortgage rates, adults in their 20s and early 30s are moving into their own apartments and buying homes in increasingly greater numbers, according to real estate experts and government statistics.

Census Bureau data show that the nation added more than 2 million households in the 12 months that ended March 31, about triple the annual average for the previous four years. Most of the gain came from baby boomers, but young adults are hitting the road as well.

The recession had knocked overall U.S. interstate migration to a post-World War II low, but last year the number of people ages 25 to 29 who moved across state lines reached its highest level in 13 years, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.

Frey called the shift significant: "They're leading indicators of migration coming for the broader population."

Laurie Brown, 26, said she was "completely broke" when she moved back into her parents' house near Tahoe City, Calif., in early March 2011. She came home with college loans to pay and other debt from bouncing from one place to the next.

"At first, I thought I'd be there only two months," she said.

But Brown soon realized just how tough the job market was. She had a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, in business communications from George Fox University in Newburg, Ore., but the best she could find after returning home was busing and waiting tables at a restaurant in Tahoe City.

"I was really humbled," she said. "It made me feel like I wasn't an adult, like you're back in high school." Once a week, she got together for happy hour with three high-school buddies who were all in the same boat: college graduates living at home again. "We were kind of a support group," she said.

Then in late April, after finding full-time work at a nonprofit youth development and literacy program in the Tahoe area, Brown moved into an apartment about 15 minutes from her parents' home.

"In some ways it was a blessing in disguise," she said of her 14 months living with her mother and father. Although it was hard at times to adjust, she said, "it was really nice to spend time with my parents. I was able to reconnect with them."

During the recession and slow recovery, young people better educated than their parents' generation have struggled to compete with older workers in a job market with several unemployed people for every opening. That compares with about two people unemployed for every job opening before the 2007-09 recession.

Without sufficient incomes, they delayed getting married and having children, and simply stayed where they could pay little or no rent.

The result was that 2 million more adults ages 18 to 34 were living under their parents' roofs last year than four years earlier, according to an analysis of census data by Timothy Dunne, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

Over the last year, the jobless rate of those ages 25 to 34 has dropped a little more sharply than it has for the overall population. It fell to 7.9% in November from 9% at the start of the year, compared with a decline to 7.7% from 8.3% for all workers.

"With stronger economic fundamentals, the process will pick up speed," Dunne said. "I think there's pressure. Households can delay formation for only so long."

People tend to move long distances for new jobs.

A week ago, Kevin Ratz, 27, hitched a U-haul to his Ford pickup, loaded the trailer with furniture, stereo equipment and skis, and drove to Chicago.

Ratz left behind his parents' suburban Detroit home, where he had stayed in his childhood room for the last two years. The room was pretty much unchanged, with its sports-car posters on the wall and youth-hockey trophies lining the bookshelf.

One big reason he moved back in with his parents was the weak job market for young pilots. Although he had a degree in aviation from Western Michigan University and some experience as a flight instructor, he found few well-paying openings in the field.

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Egypt protesters demand that Mohamed Morsi step down

CAIRO — Tens of thousands of Egyptians broke through barbed wire and marched to the presidential palace Friday demanding that President Mohamed Morsi step down even as government officials appeared to offer a slight concession on a controversial proposed constitution.

"Leave, leave like Mubarak!" protesters chanted, referring to Morsi's predecessor, longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Many protesters outside the palace no longer asked for Morsi to rescind a decree last month that expanded his powers and postpone a referendum scheduled Dec. 15 on a proposed charter written by an Islamist-dominated assembly. They demanded his resignation in what has become the sharpest political crisis since last year's overthrow of Mubarak.

Protesters said they were upset by Morsi's televised address Thursday, during which he offered a "national dialogue" with opposition leaders but remained adamant about the referendum and kept his unpopular decree in place.

In response to protests that have spread across the country, Vice President Mahmoud Mekki announced that Morsi was willing to postpone the constitutional referendum if the opposition agreed not to challenge the document in court. The government, in another effort to calm the crisis, announced that it would delay the early start of voting on the referendum for Egyptians living abroad from Saturday until Wednesday.

Analysts said the government's announcement may have been an attempt by Morsi to allow time for negotiations with opposition leaders.

"Morsi underestimated the opposition," said Ziad Akl, senior analyst at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "After witnessing the protesters break through the barbed wire to surround the palace, he realized that he had to make some kind of concession."

Opposition leaders had not responded to government officials by late Friday. They have said the opposition is not willing to negotiate until the president revokes his "dictatorial" constitutional decree and postpones the referendum.

At least six people have died and hundreds have been injured in clashes that began Wednesday between Islamist supporters of Morsi and protesters from mainly secular opposition movements.

The civil strife has been the bloodiest the country has witnessed since last year's uprising that toppled Mubarak. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have refused to retreat as the opposition promised more protests.

"Morsi has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of the people, especially after yesterday's speech. As a leader, he is responsible for those who died," Waleed Essam, a 30-year-old artist, said as he waved a large white banner with the image of one of the protesters killed in the recent violence.

"He didn't even acknowledge that those who died were revolutionaries. He spoke 24 hours after the violence. This is not a president for Egyptians," Essam said.

Tamer Sherif, a 38-year-old engineer protesting outside the palace, said Morsi must go because "he is a president for the Brotherhood."

"He didn't respect the judiciary, the people or the constitution," Sherif said. "He wants to turn the country into a Brotherhood nation."

More than 20 political parties and opposition movements called for Friday's protests against Morsi. The groups said Morsi's legitimacy as president "fell as the blood of revolutionaries" fell during the clashes.

Thousands of Morsi's supporters marched in the afternoon after holding funeral prayers for victims of Wednesday's violence in Al Azhar mosque.

Abdellatif is a special correspondent.

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Viral rapper PSY apologizes for anti-US protests

South Korean rapper and Internet sensation PSY is apologizing to Americans for participating in anti-U.S. protests several years ago.

Park Jae-sang, who performs as PSY, issued a statement Friday after reports surfaced that he had participated in concerts protesting the U.S. military presence in South Korea during the early stages of the Iraq war.

At a 2004 concert, the "Gangnam Style" rapper performs a song with lyrics about killing "Yankees" who have been torturing Iraqi captives and their families "slowly and painfully." During a 2002 concert, he smashed a model of a U.S. tank on stage.

"While I'm grateful for the freedom to express one's self, I've learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and I'm deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted," he wrote in the statement. "I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused by those words."

The 34-year-old rapper says the protests were part of a "deeply emotional" reaction to the war and the death of two Korean school girls, who were killed when a U.S. military vehicle hit them as they walked alongside the road. He noted anti-war sentiment was high around the world at the time.

PSY attended college in the U.S. and says he understands the sacrifices U.S. military members have made to protect South Korea and other nations. He has recently performed in front of servicemen and women.

"And I hope they and all Americans can accept my apology," he wrote. "While it's important that we express our opinions, I deeply regret the inflammatory and inappropriate language I used to do so. In my music, I try to give people a release, a reason to smile. I have learned that thru music, our universal language we can all come together as a culture of humanity and I hope that you will accept my apology."

His participation in the protests was no secret in South Korea, where the U.S. has had a large military presence since the Korean War, but was not generally known in America until recent news reports.

PSY did not write "Dear American," a song by the Korean band N.EX.T, but he does perform it. The song exhorts the listener to kill the Yankees who are torturing Iraqi captives, their superiors who ordered the torture and their families. At one point he raps: "Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers/Kill them all slowly and painfully."

PSY launched to international acclaim based on the viral nature of his "Gangnam Style" video. It became YouTube's most watched video, making him a millionaire who freely crossed cultural boundaries around the world. Much of that success has happened in the U.S., where the rapper has managed to weave himself into pop culture.

He recently appeared on the American Music Awards, dancing alongside MC Hammer in a melding of memorable dance moves that book-end the last two decades. And the Internet is awash with copycat versions of the song. Even former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, the 81-year-old co-chairman of President Barack Obama's deficit commission, got in on the fun, recently using the song in a video to urge young Americans to avoid credit card debt.

It remains to be seen how PSY's American fans will react. Obama, the father of two pop music fans, wasn't letting the news change his plans, though.

Earlier Friday, the White House confirmed Obama and his family will attend a Dec. 21 charity concert where PSY is among the performers. A spokesman says it's customary for the president to attend the "Christmas in Washington" concert, which will be broadcast on TNT. The White House has no role in choosing performers for the event, which benefits the National Children's Medical Center.

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Justices to Take Up Generic Drug Case

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said on Friday that it would decide whether a pharmaceutical company should be allowed to pay a competitor millions of dollars to keep a generic copy of a best-selling drug off the market.

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Ralph Neas, head of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, said the case would alter the marketing of new generics.

The case could settle a decade-long battle between federal regulators, who say the deals violate antitrust law, and the pharmaceutical industry, which contends that they are really just settlements of disputes over patents that protect the billions of dollars they pour into research and development.

Three separate federal circuit courts of appeal have ruled over the last decade that the deals were allowable. But in July a federal appeals court in Philadelphia — which covers the territory where many big drug makers are based — said the arrangements were anticompetitive.

Both sides in the case supported the petition for the Supreme Court to decide the case, each arguing that the conflicting appeals court decisions would inject uncertainty into their operations.

By keeping lower-priced generic drugs off the market, drug companies are able to charge higher prices than they otherwise could. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a Senate bill to outlaw those payments would lower drug costs in the United States by $11 billion and would save the federal government $4.8 billion over 10 years.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who co-sponsored the Senate bill, which never came to the floor for a vote, praised the decision.

The Federal Trade Commission first filed the suit in question in 2009. Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the F.T.C., said, “These pay-for-delay deals are win-win for the drug companies, but big losers for U.S. consumers and taxpayers.”

Generic drug makers say that the payments preserve a system that has saved American consumers hundreds of billions of dollars.

“This case could determine how an entire industry does business because it would dramatically affect the economics of each decision to introduce a new generic drug,” Ralph G. Neas, president of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, said in a statement. “The current industry paradigm of challenging patents on branded drugs in order to bring new generics to market as soon as possible has produced $1.06 trillion in savings over the past 10 years.”

The case will review a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, which in the spring ruled in favor of the drug makers, Watson Pharmaceuticals and Solvay Pharmaceuticals. Watson had applied for federal approval to sell a generic version of AndroGel, a testosterone replacement drug made by Solvay.

While courts have long held that paying a competitor to stay off the market creates unfair competition, the pharmaceuticals case is different because it involves patents, whose essential purpose is to prevent competition.

When a generic manufacturer seeks approval to market a copy of a brand-name drug, it also often files a lawsuit challenging a patent that the drug’s originator says prevents competition.

Last year, for the third time since 2003, the 11th Circuit upheld the agreements as long as the allegedly anticompetitive behavior that results — in this case, keeping the generic drug off the market — is the same thing that would take place if the brand-name company’s patent were upheld.

Two other federal circuit courts, the Second Circuit and the Federal Circuit, have ruled similarly. But in July, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals said that those arrangements were anticompetitive on their face and violated antitrust law.

The agreements are also affected by a peculiar condition in the law that legalized generic competition for prescription drugs. That law, known as the Hatch-Waxman Act, gives a 180-day period of exclusivity to the first generic drug maker to file for approval of a generic copy and to file a lawsuit challenging the brand-name drug’s patent.

Brand-name drug companies have taken advantage of that law, finding that they can settle the patent suit by getting the generic company to agree to stay out of the market for a period of time. Because that generic company also has exclusivity rights, no other generic companies can enter the market.

Michael A. Carrier, a professor at Rutgers School of Law-Camden, said that while there were provisions in the law under which a generic company could forfeit that exclusivity, “they really are toothless in practice.”

One wild card could still prevent the Supreme Court from definitively settling the question. In granting the petition to hear the case, the Supreme Court said that Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. recused himself, taking no part in the consideration or decision.

That opens the possibility that a 4-4 decision could result, upholding the lower court case that went against the F.T.C. and in favor of the drug makers. But it would leave the broader question for another day.

The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals et al, No. 12-416.

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Election is over, but 'super PACs' remain a threat

Just as the devil's finest trick is persuading you that he doesn't exist (according to the poet Baudelaire), the best trick of big-money political donors may be persuading Americans that Citizens United doesn't matter.

Citizens United, of course, is the infamous 2010 ruling by the Supreme Court that overturned limits on political spending via ostensibly independent groups, and thereby unleashed a torrent of donations from corporations and wealthy individuals in presidential and congressional election cycles.

One of the big post-election punditry themes after last month's election was that it showed big-time spending couldn't help donors like Las Vegas mogul Sheldon Adelson get their way and might even have worked against them. A determined Obama foe, Adelson donated $20 million to a "super PAC" supporting Mitt Romney, and at least $32 million more to other conservative groups in an election widely seen as a rout of the right wing. The conclusion was: Hoo boy, did he waste his money.

This sort of schadenfreude by liberals and progressives — or is it "Sheldonfreude"? — is misplaced and dangerous. Influence by corporations and the wealthy still counts for a lot in our electoral process, and it's only going to count for more. Citizens United still needs an antidote.

"People are too complacent," says Fred Wertheimer, a veteran public interest advocate who currently heads Democracy 21, a Washington nonprofit devoted to campaign finance reform. "The larger issue is the ability to buy influence over government policies, and that's operating in full force regardless of the outcomes of particular races."

Nor is it entirely correct to say that the Citizens United style of spending failed because more Democrats than Republicans prevailed at the polls. "There was super PAC money on both sides," says Larry Noble, president of Americans for Campaign Reform, a Concord, N.H.-based nonprofit seeking to dilute the influence of private money in elections. "They may not have determined the election, but you can't say they didn't have any influence."

Super PACs are a species of political organization that can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions, and individuals and spend the money for or against specific candidates; they're merely barred from directly coordinating with the candidates they back, a porous and easily finessed limitation.

Federal election records show that the biggest ones this year were Restore Our Future, which spent $143 million in support of Romney; the Karl Rove-affiliated American Crossroads, which spent $124 million for conservative causes; and Priorities USA Action, which spent $78 million in support of President Obama.

"The candidates are happy you made those donations," Noble says. "And as long as the candidates are happy, that money will continue to flow."

The impulse to please big donors to keep the money flowing visibly narrows the breadth of debate in Washington, where raising the top marginal income tax rate by 4.6 percentage points, to 39.6%, is treated as the absolute limit on taxation of the wealthy. For most of the Reagan administration, the top rate was 50% or higher.

This mind-set reflects the outsized influence of a small clutch of wealthy individuals and corporate donors. According to a study by the nonprofit progressive organizations Demos and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, contributions to super PACs by just 61 large donors averaging $4.7 million each matched the combined donations of 1.4 million donors of $250 or less to the Romney and Obama campaigns.

Whose voices are likely to resonate more loudly in the halls of the White House and Congress — the 61 donors or the 1.4 million?

That's why the Washington debate over the "fiscal cliff" has boiled down to a discussion about how to impose long-term sacrifices on average working men and women by gutting their retirement and healthcare benefits, while leaving those who earn more than $250,000 a year better off.

That side of the debate is being spearheaded by corporate CEOs organized as the Campaign to Fix the Debt. It has close ties to Peter G. Peterson, a hedge fund billionaire who has spent millions in a decades-long attack on Social Security and Medicare. (There are also links between Peterson and Americans for Campaign Reform.)

The organization's most prominent spokesmodels, such as Honeywell Chairman and Chief Executive David M. Cote, are tolerably well insulated from the sacrifices they advocate as part of a fiscal-cliff solution. Cote is a member of Fix the Debt's steering committee. As of the end of last year, Honeywell calculated the present value of the pension benefits due him upon retirement at $36.2 million.

He accumulated those benefits over a period of less than 10 years in his job and is entitled to collect at age 60, which means he's eligible this year. (The figures come from Honeywell's latest proxy statement.)

According to several commercial annuity calculators, Cote's accumulated benefits might yield him a monthly stipend of $150,000 to $175,000 today. For comparison's sake, the monthly Social Security retirement benefit for the average worker is $1,230 this year — and that's for a worker who likely earned benefits from 45 years of labor, not 10, and retired at age 66, not 60. By the way, Honeywell's employee pension plan was underfunded at the end of last year to the tune of $2.76 billion, a deficit of 18%.

The most important point to make about big donations in the 2012 election is that they may have been ineffective, especially on the conservative side, because they were deployed stupidly.

Romney and his GOP supporters sank their money into overpriced and transparently fatuous advertisements, while the Obama camp invested frugally on ads and heavily on ground-level organizing. But people like Sheldon Adelson didn't accumulate their wealth by being stupid, and it's a safe bet they won't make the same mistakes again.

The best counterweights to Citizens United lie in tightening up disclosure rules, to combat a trend that saw donors of as much as 37% of the donations to outside campaign groups remaining unidentified. That's $125 million, contributed mostly through "social welfare" organizations and business leagues that are allowed to keep their donors secret but aren't supposed to engage chiefly in electioneering. Clearly that's a regulation that's been flagrantly flouted.

Another good idea is to magnify the weight of small donations to tip the scale back toward the average voter. That's the goal of the Empowering Citizens Act, sponsored by Reps. David Price (D-N.C.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) By providing a public match of 5 to 1 for the first $250 of any individual's contribution to a presidential or congressional candidate, the measure aims to raise incentives for individuals to donate and for candidates to seek small donations.

Without some way of redressing the imbalance between big donors and small, "the great danger of huge contributions buying influence over government decisions at the expense of ordinary Americans is going to be in full play," says Wertheimer, whose organization endorses the Empowering Citizens Act.

"This is just Year One" of the post-Citizens United era, he adds. "Already we saw $1 billion in unlimited contributions raised by super PACs and social welfare organizations. We're going to have an arms race."

Michael Hiltzik's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Reach him at mhiltzik@latimes.com, read past columns at latimes.com/hiltzik, check out facebook.com/hiltzik and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.

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Judge may lower Apple's award in Samsung patent case

By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times

December 6, 2012, 8:42 p.m.

SAN JOSE — A federal judge signaled Thursday that she might reduce Apple Inc.'s $1-billion jury award in its patent infringement case with Samsung Electronics Co.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh did not specify by how much she might shave the award, but during a marathon afternoon hearing in federal court in San Jose she said it did appear that the jury had miscalculated damages.

In August, after three days of deliberations in the complex patent case, a jury awarded Apple more than $1 billion.

In the months since the verdict, Samsung has mounted an aggressive campaign to overturn the verdict, raising a host of legal issues including juror misconduct. Apple hotly contested those issues during the hearing Thursday and sought to increase the damage award.

Lawyers for the world's two largest smartphone makers sparred for more than three hours over a bevy of legal issues in the dispute that produced one of the largest damage awards in an intellectual property case. Koh said she would issue rulings in the coming weeks.

Samsung argued that the damage award should be reduced because the jury incorrectly calculated the amount. Apple asked the court to award $535 million more in damages because the jury found that Samsung had willfully infringed Apple's patents.

Both sides seemed to be gearing up for years of legal appeals despite the judge's plea for "global peace." The case is likely to go before the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, the Washington court that decides patent disputes, and perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court.

Apple also asked the judge to ban some Samsung products. The judge did not rule on whether the infringing Samsung products should be taken off store shelves.

The products are older models and would not dent Samsung sales, but the ban would give Apple a win in its high-stakes patent war against the South Korean company that is playing out around the globe.

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jessica.guynn@latimes.com

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Apple, Samsung spar in court, ruling to come

SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) – Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics squared off again in court on Thursday, as the iPhone maker tried to convince a U.S. district judge to ban sales of a number of the South Korean company’s devices and defended its $ 1.05 billion jury award.

Apple scored a sweeping legal victory in August at the conclusion of its landmark case against its arch-foe, when a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad and awarded it damages.

Both sides re-convened on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh listened to a range of arguments on topics from setting aside the jury’s findings on liability to alleged juror misconduct and the requested injunction.

The hearing concluded with Koh promising to rule at a later date.

Twenty-four of Samsung’s smartphones were found to have infringed on Apple’s patents, while two of Samsung’s tablets were cleared of similar allegations.

Koh began by questioning the basis for some of the damages awarded by the jury, putting Apple’s lawyers on the defensive.

“I don’t see how you can evaluate the aggregate verdict without looking at the pieces,” Koh said.

Samsung’s lawyers argued the ruling against it should be “reverse engineered” to be sure the $ 1.05 billion was legally arrived at by the jury and said that on that basis, the amount should be slashed. Apple countered that the ruling was reasonable.

“Assuming I disagree with you, what do I do about Captivate, Continuum, Droid Charge, Epic 4G, and Gem?” Koh asked Apple’s lawyers, referring to the jury’s calculation of damages regarding some of Samsung’s devices.

FIERCEST RIVAL

Samsung is Apple’s fiercest global business rival and their battle for consumers’ allegiance is helping shape the landscape of the booming smartphone and tablet industry — a fight that has claimed several high-profile victims, including Nokia.

While the trial was deemed a resounding victory for Apple, the company has since seen its market value shrink as uncertainty grows about its ability to continue fending off an assault by Samsung and other Google Inc Android gadgets on its home turf.

Apple’s stock has nosedived 18 percent since the August 24 verdict, while Samsung’s has gained around 16 percent.

Most of the devices facing injunction are older and, in some cases, out of the market.

Such injunctions have been key for companies trying to increase their leverage in courtroom patent fights.

In October, a U.S. appeals court overturned a pretrial sales ban against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone, dealing a setback to Apple’s battle against Google Inc’s increasingly popular mobile software.

Some analysts say Apple’s willingness to license patents to Taiwan’s HTC could convince Koh it does not need the injunction, as the two companies could arrive at a licensing deal.

Apple is also attempting to add more than $ 500 million to the $ 1 billion judgment because the jury found Samsung willfully infringed on its patents. A Samsung lawyer argued against willful damages and said the base amount for calculating any potential willful damages should be just $ 10 million.

Samsung wants the verdict overturned, saying the jury foreman did not disclose that he was once in litigation with Seagate Technology, a company that Samsung has invested in.

“He should have been excused for cause,” said Samsung lawyer Charles Verhoeven. “Such a juror was a juror in name only.”

The juror misconduct charge is “unlikely to have much traction,” said Christopher Carani, a partner at Chicago-based intellectual property law firm McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Ltd.

Both Apple and Samsung have filed separate lawsuits covering newer products, including the Samsung Galaxy Note II. That case is pending in U.S. District Court in San Jose and is set for trial in 2014.

(Reporting By Noel Randewich; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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AP Interview: Jackson, cast discuss 'The Hobbit'

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Many fans are eagerly anticipating a return to the fictional world of Middle-earth with next week's general release of the first movie in "The Hobbit" trilogy. Director Peter Jackson and the film's stars speak to The Associated Press about making "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey":

— Jackson on shooting at 48 frames per second instead of the standard 24: "We've seen the arrival of iPhones and iPads and now there's a generation of kids — the worry that I have is that they seem to think it's OK to wait for the film to come out on DVD or be available for download. And I don't want kids to see 'The Hobbit' on their iPads, really. Not for the first time. So as a filmmaker, I feel the responsibility to say, 'This is the technology we have now, and it's different ... How can we raise the bar? Why do we have to stick with 24 frames? ...'"

"The world has to move on and change. And I want to get people back into the cinema. I want to play my little tiny role in encouraging that beautiful, magical, mysterious experience of going into a dark room full of strangers, and being transported into a piece of escapism."

— Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins) on shooting some scenes without other actors around: "I must admit I found the green screen and all that easier than I thought I would. ... I found the technical aspect of it quite doable. Some of it's difficult, but it's quite enjoyable, actually. It taps into when I used to play 'war' as a 6-year-old. And the Germans were all imaginary. Because I was playing a British person. So yeah, I was on the right side. ..."

On marrying his performance to that of Ian Holm, who played an older Bilbo Baggins in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy: "I knew I couldn't be a slave to it. Because as truly fantastic as Ian Holm is in everything, and certainly as Bilbo, I can't just go and do an impression of Ian Holm for a year and a half. Because it's my turn. But it was very useful for me to watch and listen to stuff he did, vocal ticks or physical ticks, that I can use but not feel hamstrung by."

— Hugo Weaving (Elrond) on the differences in tone to the "Rings" trilogy: "This one feels lighter, more buoyant, but it's got quite profoundly moving sequences in it, too ... I think it's very different in many ways, and yet it's absolutely the same filmmaker, and you are inhabiting the same world."

— Elijah Wood (Frodo) on returning to Middle-earth in a cameo role: "It was a gift to come back ... what they'd constructed was such a beautiful remembrance of the characters from the original trilogy."

— Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) on the toughest part of filming: "Trying to keep my children off the set."

— Richard Armitage (Thorin Oakenshield) on being a 6-foot-2 guy playing a dwarf: "It's amazing how quickly you get used to it. And also, we spent most of the shoot much bigger than a 6-foot-2 guy. I mean, I had lifts in my shoes, I was wider, I was taller, and bigger-haired. And I actually think that was quite an interesting place to be, because I do think dwarfs have big ideas about themselves ..."

— Andy Serkis (Gollum) on taking on the additional role of second-unit director: "There were only a couple of times where there were really, really black days where I went away thinking, 'This is it. I can't do it.' But on the whole, Pete (Jackson) was so brilliant at allowing me to set stuff up and then critiquing my work ... but at least I would have my stab at it."

On the film itself: "I think it's a great story. I think it's a beautifully crafted film with great heart. A rollicking adventure, and it feels to me like this really massive feast that everyone will enjoy eating."

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Judge may lower Apple's award in Samsung patent case

By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times

December 6, 2012, 8:42 p.m.

SAN JOSE — A federal judge signaled Thursday that she might reduce Apple Inc.'s $1-billion jury award in its patent infringement case with Samsung Electronics Co.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh did not specify by how much she might shave the award, but during a marathon afternoon hearing in federal court in San Jose she said it did appear that the jury had miscalculated damages.

In August, after three days of deliberations in the complex patent case, a jury awarded Apple more than $1 billion.

In the months since the verdict, Samsung has mounted an aggressive campaign to overturn the verdict, raising a host of legal issues including juror misconduct. Apple hotly contested those issues during the hearing Thursday and sought to increase the damage award.

Lawyers for the world's two largest smartphone makers sparred for more than three hours over a bevy of legal issues in the dispute that produced one of the largest damage awards in an intellectual property case. Koh said she would issue rulings in the coming weeks.

Samsung argued that the damage award should be reduced because the jury incorrectly calculated the amount. Apple asked the court to award $535 million more in damages because the jury found that Samsung had willfully infringed Apple's patents.

Both sides seemed to be gearing up for years of legal appeals despite the judge's plea for "global peace." The case is likely to go before the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, the Washington court that decides patent disputes, and perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court.

Apple also asked the judge to ban some Samsung products. The judge did not rule on whether the infringing Samsung products should be taken off store shelves.

The products are older models and would not dent Samsung sales, but the ban would give Apple a win in its high-stakes patent war against the South Korean company that is playing out around the globe.

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Samsung lawyers file copy of Apple patent settlement with HTC

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jessica.guynn@latimes.com

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Oscar Niemeyer dies at 104; modernist Brazilian architect

Oscar Niemeyer, the architect whose soaring buildings form the heart of Brasilia, the instant modernist capital built in the wilds of Brazil in the late 1950s, has died. He was 104.

Niemeyer, who had outlived his contemporaries to become the world's oldest practicing architect of international stature, died Wednesday at a Rio de Janeiro hospital. The cause was a respiratory infection, a hospital spokeswoman told the Associated Press.

During his long and productive life, Niemeyer was revered as well as ridiculed for his daring designs, but the creativity and sheer volume of his works ultimately spoke for him. In 1988, at 80, he shared architecture's biggest prize, the Pritzker.

Niemeyer, a diminutive, soft-spoken man, worked well into his 90s in a Rio de Janeiro penthouse office with a stunning view of Sugar Loaf Mountain and overlooking Copacabana Beach. Hundreds of projects came into being kindled by this view.

Many of his designs began with a quick sketch that embodied his love of the curve — from Einstein's universe, to the sinewy white beach that he gazed at nearly every day, to the voluptuous women he so loved to watch walking along that beach.

These women, he often said, were his inspiration.

"Curves are the essence of my work because they are the essence of Brazil, pure and simple," Niemeyer told the Washington Post in 2002. "I am a Brazilian before I am an architect. I cannot separate the two."

A passionate man, he lived in protest of the right angle "and buildings designed with the ruler and the square." His politics were also those of protest — he became a communist in the 1940s because of his anger over the inequality he saw around him, and he was a longtime friend of Cuba's revolutionary, Fidel Castro. His designs — especially of Brasilia — were partly an attempt to push his country toward egalitarianism, bringing rich and poor together through housing projects and public spaces.

A few years after Brasilia was completed, when a rightist military coup in 1964 not only destroyed Niemeyer's dreams of a just society in Brazil but also took away his sponsors, he fled to Algiers and then Paris. In the city, he had an office on the Champs Elysees and met Pablo Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre and many other notables and, he later recounted, lived a hedonistic life far away from his wife, Annita. He returned to Rio in the late 1970s.

Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida de Niemeyer Soares was a Carioca — a native of Rio — whose heritage was Portuguese, Arab and German. Born Dec. 15, 1907, he was the son of a businessman and his wife who lived in Laranjeiras, a quaint, hilly neighborhood within the city.

While at the National School of Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1934, Niemeyer worked with architect and urban planner Lucio Costa, who would lead Niemeyer to projects that would make his name in international architecture.

Costa, the master planner of Brasilia and an early proponent of Brazilian modernism, at first was unimpressed when the young draftsman joined his firm. Before long, they were working with Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier — who was in Brazil as a design consultant to the government — on the defiantly modern design for the Ministry of Education and Health Building in Rio. The building, which incorporated Le Corbusier's signature "brise-soleil" louvers to shield it from Brazil's intense sunlight, became a symbol of the new architecture in Brazil.

Le Corbusier would greatly influence Niemeyer, instilling in him a sense of fluidity, spontaneity and what David Underwood, writing in "Oscar Niemeyer and Brazilian Free-form Modernism" (1994), called jeito — "the lightness of touch, the graceful elegance of form and the movement inherent in the sauntering 'Girl from Ipanema' celebrated in the best of Brazilian modernism."

While Le Corbusier opened doors to creativity, however, Niemeyer saw his work as very distinct from his mentor's. As he told The Times: "He posited the right angle. I posit the curve."

In bringing to life his sensuous designs, he relied on what was then a new and versatile material — reinforced concrete — which he pushed to its limits, especially at load-bearing points, he wrote in a 2003 essay for Deutsches Architektur Museum, "which I wanted to be as delicate as possible so that it would seem as if [they] barely touched the ground."

The first Niemeyer structure built was a maternity clinic in Rio in 1937. His first major project, commissioned in 1940, were buildings for Pampulha, a then-new suburb of the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte, including a yacht club, casino and a church so avant-garde in design that church officials refused to consecrate it for 16 years.

With Costa, Niemeyer also designed the Brazilian Pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1939, and Niemeyer influenced the ultimate design of the United Nations headquarters while serving as Brazil's design consultant in 1947.

In time, his portfolio would include a postwar housing project in Berlin; the universities of Constantine and Algiers in Algeria; the French Communist Party headquarters in Paris; the Cultural Center of Le Havre, France; and the Mondadori headquarters in Milan.

He also designed the Strick House in Santa Monica— thought to be his only residential commission in the United States.

He will perhaps be best remembered for Brasilia, the bold project launched by Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek in 1956 in an effort to unify his vast country and move it forward half a century in a mere five years.

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