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A Samsung unit is raising the ante in a patent dispute with a German rival over energy-saving LED lighting amid intensifying legal disputes among global companies jockeying for supremacy in key consumer technologies.

Samsung LED Co. said Sunday that it has asked the United States International Trade Commission to bar products of Osram GmbH and two units from entering the U.S.

Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung LED said it also filed a lawsuit in a U.S. district court in the state of Delaware alleging infringement of its LED patents, seeking unspecified damages.

Samsung LED is targeting Osram, Osram Opto Semiconductors and Osram Sylvania Inc. in the actions. Munich-based Osram GmbH is a unit of German industrial engineering giant Siemens AG. Osram Sylvania is Osram’s North American operation, based in Danvers, Massachusetts.

Last month, Samsung LED sued Osram Korea Co. and two local companies that sell its products in South Korea in retaliation for what is said were suits by Osram at the USITC, in the Delaware court and in Germany.

“Samsung LED intends to vigorously enforce its intellectual property rights, and these lawsuits reflect Samsung LED’s commitment to that enforcement,” the company said in a release.

Osram could not immediately be reached for comment.

Samsung LED is alleging infringement of eight patents covering what it calls “core” LED technologies used in products such as lighting, automobiles, projectors, mobile phone screens and TVs.

Semiconductor-based LEDs, or light emitting diodes, are becoming increasingly popular for their durability and energy-saving capability.

Samsung LED also suggested it could expand the scope of the USITC case pay day loan lenders.

“As new information becomes available it will continue to evaluate the potential to add additional parties who may be importing, using or selling the accused Osram LEDs in the U.S. market,” the company said in the release.

Samsung LED was established in 2009 as a joint venture between Samsung Electronics Co. and Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co.

Such complaints and lawsuits are common in the global technology industry and seldom lead to market disruptions as disputes take months or years to resolve and typically end with payments of licensing fees rather than any import bans.

Still, they highlight the intensity of competition in which technological advantage can give companies a key edge in attracting consumers.

Rochester, New York-based Eastman Kodak Co. has an ongoing patent dispute over photo technology at the USITC with Apple Inc. of Cupertino, California, and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. of Waterloo, Canada.

Samsung companies are taking an aggressive stance in global technology patent wars.

Samsung Electronics is embroiled in multiple complaints and lawsuits with Apple Inc. over smartphone and tablet technology. Separately, Samsung and Taiwan’s AU Optronics Corp. have launched legal actions against each other over alleged patent infringement in liquid crystal displays.

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Associated Press writer Debby Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.

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US stock futures are nearly flat as traders await the government’s key report on hiring and unemployment in June.

The data will show whether the economy has rebounded after slowing down this summer because of high gas prices and crises in Japan.

Major U.S. stock indices have recovered to near their highs for the year, reached on April 29. Two weeks ago, bad economic data had them near their yearly lows.

A strong jobs report Friday could jolt Wall Street, pushing stocks past those benchmarks.

Before the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 9 points, or 0.1 percent, at 12,690. Standard & Poor’s 500 futures are down a fraction at 1,351. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 2, or 0.1 percent at 2,418.

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Greece wants to conclude negotiations for a second bailout by the end of the summer “at the latest,” the country’s new finance minister said Monday, at the start of a parliamentary debate on unpopular but crucial austerity measures.

A new euro28 billion ($40 billion) Greek austerity package and implementation law must be passed in parliamentary votes this week so the European Union and the International Monetary Fund release the next installment of Greece’s euro110 billion ($156 billion) bailout loan.

Without it, Greece faces the prospect next month of becoming the first eurozone country to default on its debts _ a potentially disastrous event that could drag down European banks and affect other financially troubled European countries.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, who only assumed the post in a June 17 cabinet reshuffle, said the euro12 billion ($17 billion) installment will cover the country’s borrowing needs until mid-September.

“And between now and the end of the summer at the latest, we must seriously negotiate the new program with our partner _ the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF _ and guarantee viability of the national debt with the participation of private investors internationally,” Venizelos said.

It has become clear that the initial bailout from May 2010 is not enough to pull Greece out of its financial crisis. The country’s international creditors are now discussing a second bailout, which Prime Minister George Papandreou has said it will be roughly the same size as the first. Many investors, meanwhile, believe that Greek’s debt burden is too great to handle without defaulting regardless of the bailouts.

Venizelos on Monday urged Greek opposition parties to back the government in negotiations with the country’s international creditors.

The main opposition leader, the conservative New Democracy party’s Antonis Samaras, has so far resisted intense European pressure to back the new austerity bill. While Samaras supports cost-cutting measures and the sale of some government assets, he has called the thinking behind the austerity bill flawed. He says tax rates should be lowered rather than raised in order to stimulate an economy in recession.

“I call on New Democracy and the other parties: Come, let’s negotiate together. And once we have negotiated, we will have a better result because it will have greater national strength,” Venizelos said.

Parliament is to vote on the austerity bill Wednesday, and on an additional law on implementing the measures Thursday. The new cuts have caused widespread anger, and unions have declared a 48-hour nationwide general strike for Tuesday and Wednesday to coincide with the parliamentary debate and vote.

Protesters also say they will encircle parliament on Wednesday to prevent deputies from entering the building to vote.

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Businesses added to their stockpiles for a 16th consecutive month in April. But their sales grew at the slowest pace in 10 months, a sign that many companies could be forced to slash supply levels soon if the economy weakens further.

The Commerce Department says business supply levels grew 0.8 percent in April and sales rose for a 10th straight month. But the 0.1 percent sales increase was the smallest since sales fell 0.5 percent in June of last year.

The concern is that with the economy slowing, businesses may have miscalculated on consumer demand and could be stuck with unwanted inventories. That would trigger cutbacks in orders and cause manufacturing activity to slow.

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Chris Housand dumped his job as a forklift operator in January to seek skills that would make him valuable over a lifetime.

“Being 22 and with two kids and a wife I had a lot of weight on my shoulders,” said the Tarboro, North Carolina, resident. Warehouse work “was pretty much a dead-end job.”

He enrolled in electrical-lineman school at Nash Community College in nearby Rocky Mount. After graduation on May 6, he was hired into a four-month paid internship program that holds the promise of a permanent position, at a time when 16.1 percent of men in his age group are jobless.

Housand is catching a wave of demographic change that’s likely to benefit younger workers. A generational replacement cycle is taking hold as companies such as General Electric Co. (GE), Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC), Boeing Co. (BA), American Electric Power Co. Inc. and Dominion Resources Inc. all try to hire skilled younger staff to prepare for a wave of retiring workers.

“Firms will increasingly find that the outflows of retiring workers are bigger than the inflows of younger workers,” said Nicole Maestas, a labor economist at the RAND Corporation, a Santa Monica, California-based policy group paydayloans. “Nobody is immune to these basic demographic facts.”

GE doubled its U.S. college hiring program to 1,278 in 2010. The world’s biggest maker of jet engines, gas turbines, and medical-imaging equipment scouts some 40 U.S. universities to replenish its pipeline of engineers and future managers and spends $300,000 per student in its two-year trainee program.

‘Big Swings’

“We can afford to take some big swings, and investing in people and growing talent is what we do best,” said Steven Canale, manager of global recruiting and staffing for Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE. “The workforce is getting older.”

The median age for the U.S. population climbed to a record 37.2 in 2010, according to the Census Bureau, and the workforce in several industries is even older.

The median age in aerospace manufacturing was 47.9 in 2010, meaning half the workforce in Boeing’s industry was older than that; in electrical power generation it was 45.4; and in rail transportation it was 46.5, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Norfolk Southern let its staff shrink through attrition and retirement during the recession that began in December 2007. The economy has since expanded for seven quarters, and demand for natural resources and exports has snapped back.

Coal Facility

The Norfolk, Virginia based railroad, which owns the largest coal-export facility in the northern hemisphere, hired 2,800 people last year and has plans to hire 4,000 this year, according to Cindy Earhart, vice president of human resources.

One goal is to rebuild the ranks of young managers. The company is seeking about 300 college graduates to replace the 6 percent of 4,800 managers who will retire this year.

Companies such as Dominion Resources in Richmond, Virginia, are also looking for young “gray-collar” workers for jobs that require both physical ability and technical knowledge. Matt Kellam, supervisor in charge of strategic staffing at Dominion, says finding a supply of linemen and engineers is a priority.

“A good number of our lineman are 45 years and older,” Kellam said, adding that community college graduates and military veterans can provide the company with the skilled technicians it needs.

The firm has about 48 people in its lineman training program. Starting salaries are about $33,000 in the industry, Kellam said, and can rise to $80,000 or more with overtime for a journeyman.

Dropout Rates

At Nash Community College, instructor Bob Schubauer says about 30 students enroll in his lineman classes each semester. Rigorous climbing in the rain, cold and heat, and demanding engineering math, usually cut that number by two-thirds by the time his 16-week certification program is over.

In an 8:30 a.m. class, Schubauer barks orders to his students after he asks them to diagram an electrical network on the white board.

“I don’t want any confusion, I don’t want any assumptions. I want these diagrams to speak for themselves,” he says. “I don’t want to see any inconsistencies.”

Housand approaches the board and begins to draw how he would configure a bank of three transformers to go from high to usable voltage. Some of the diagrams the students draw involve about two dozen calculations.

Schubauer wants the students to know the theory behind what they are handling even though most linemen head into the field with detailed plans. The cost of a mistake is blown transformer, a power outage, injury or death, he said.

Cold Climbing

An hour later, Housand and his classmates are cinching a BuckSqueeze, a climbing belt made by Buckingham Manufacturing Co. in Binghamton, New York, around 40-foot poles, then inchworming their way up. His internship at the City of Rocky Mount lasts for 16 weeks. Four other classmates also found work.

“It is very reasonable to expect, if we have an opening, for Chris Housand to be hired unless another applicant has a lot more experience,” said Darryl Strother, Rocky Mount’s electric superintendent.

Housand worked at a cotton gin right out of high school. Now, he calls himself a “linegineer,” his term for a job that requires physical stamina and engineering knowledge.

“We do not have a labor shortage in America, we have a skill shortage,” said Boeing’s Stephens. “The key is will there be enough people to meet our needs?”

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The U.S. government is investigating whether companies that distribute airline flight and fare information are stifling competition and violating federal antitrust laws.

The Justice Department confirmed the investigation Friday after several airlines and two ticket information-distribution companies said they received letters from officials.

This is the latest twist in an escalating fight between airlines and so-called global distribution systems over how air travel is sold, especially to lucrative corporate accounts.

Many consumers buy tickets online directly from the airlines, but corporations often use travel agencies that get information about flights and fares from the three big distribution companies.

American Airlines has led the challenge to the current setup. It wants to deal directly with travel agents to reduce fees it pays to the distribution systems and to use its own information about customers to sell them extra services.

American claims distribution companies have struck back by making information about its flights harder to find.

American said Friday that it had received a civil demand for information from the Justice Department. The airline declined to release the document, but spokesman Andrew Backover said, “American is not the subject of the investigation.”

Delta Air Lines and US Airways acknowledged getting similar requests, as did two large distribution systems, or GDS companies, Travelport Ltd. and Sabre Holdings.

Travelport spokeswoman Jill Brenner said the company “welcomes the GDS industry investigation” and “is confident that it is in complete compliance with the antitrust laws.”

Sabre spokeswoman Nancy St. Pierre said that the Justice Department made no allegations when it contacted the company.

Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said the agency’s antitrust division “is investigating the possibility of anticompetitive practices in the global distribution systems industry.” She declined to comment further.

The airlines say their complaint is with the distribution systems, not travel agents.

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An intelligence official and local tribal chief say several hundred Taliban fighters held a memorial service for Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s tribal region.

They say the mourners hailed the slain al-Qaida chief and shouted slogans against America and Pakistan. The service took place Monday in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.

South Waziristan was the Pakistani Taliban’s main sanctuary before the army launched an offensive in 2009.

The intelligence official and local tribal chief Ghanam Shah Wazir say the army allowed the service to occur because it was led by Maulvi Nazir, a Taliban commander who is believed to have a peace deal with the government.

The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with agency policy.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

ISLAMABAD (AP) _ Pakistani media have reported a name they allege is that of the CIA station chief in Islamabad _ the second such potential outing of a sensitive covert operative in six months, and one that comes with tensions running high over the U.S. raid in Pakistan that killed Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

The Associated Press has learned that the name being reported is incorrect. Nonetheless, the airing of any alleged identity of the U.S. spy agency’s top official in this country could be pushback from Pakistan’s powerful military and intelligence establishment, which was humiliated over the surprise raid on its soil, and could further sour relations between Washington and Islamabad.

On Friday, the private TV channel ARY broadcast what it said was the current station chief’s name. The Nation, a right-wing newspaper, picked up the story Saturday.

ARY’s news director, Mazhar Abbas, said the television station’s reporter gleaned the name from a source. He defended the broadcast, saying it was “based on fact,” and denounced allegations that the name was leaked to the television channel by an official with an agenda.

“The prime responsibility of the reporter is to give a story which is based on facts,” he said. “Interpretation of the story is something else.”

A spokesman for Pakistani intelligence declined to comment. The U.S. Embassy also declined immediate comment Monday. The AP is not publishing the station chief’s name because he is undercover and his identity is classified. It was not immediately clear whether the Americans would pull him out of the country.

Asad Munir, a former intelligence chief with responsibility for Pakistan’s militant-riddled tribal areas, said very few people know the name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad. But he said that releasing it would not necessarily jeopardize the station chief’s safety.

“Normally people in intelligence have cover names,” Munir said. “Only if there is a photograph to identify him could it put his life in danger.”

In December, the CIA pulled its then-station chief out of Pakistan after a name alleged to be his surfaced in public and his safety was deemed at risk. That name hit the local presses after it was mentioned by a lawyer who planned a lawsuit on behalf of victims of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt.

Suspicions have lingered that that outing was orchestrated by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency to avenge an American lawsuit that named its chief over the 2008 terror attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai. The Pakistani agency denied leaking the CIA operative’s name.

The raid on bin Laden’s compound was an extraordinary blow to what was already a badly faltering relationship in recent months.

Before dawn on May 2, Navy SEALS ferried in high-tech helicopters raided a house in the garrison city of Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden had been living for up to six years, killing him and at least four others. The terrorist leader’s body was quickly buried at sea. A wealth of information _ ranging from computer thumb drives to videotapes _ was seized from the house.

Bin Laden’s location raised suspicions that he had help from some Pakistani authorities, possibly elements of the powerful army and intelligence services. Pakistan’s armed forces have historical _ some say ongoing _ links with Islamist militants, which they used as proxies in Afghanistan and India.

Islamabad says it was wholly unaware of the impending Navy SEAL attack on the compound, and U.S. officials have backed up that claim. Pakistani authorities also insist they did not know bin Laden was in Abbottabad, and U.S. officials so far have said they see no evidence that anyone in the upper echelons of Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment were complicit in hiding the terrorist leader.

But in the days since, Pakistan has lashed out at what it has called a violation of its sovereignty and warned the United States against any such future unilateral strikes on its territory. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was due to speak to parliament on the subject later Monday and expected to hit those same themes.

Ahead of his address, Gilani’s office released a brief statement in which the prime minister is quoted as saying that the Pakistan’s government’s policies have helped maintain law and order and control terrorist activities in the country.

Survivors of the raid, including children, are in Pakistani custody. The U.S. says it wants access to bin Laden’s three widows and any intelligence material its commandos left behind at the al-Qaida leader’s compound.

Suspicions of Pakistani collusion with militants pose an acute problem for the Obama administration because few can see any alternative but to continue engaging the Muslim-majority country. Unstable and nuclear-armed, it remains integral to the fight against al-Qaida as well as to American hopes for beginning to draw down troops in Afghanistan later this year.

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Pump prices may hit $4 a gallon by early May as U.S. supplies tightened after a series refinery outages reduced gasoline output this week.

The national average rose 2 cents on Friday to about $3.91 for a gallon of regular, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. That’s 6 cents more than it was a week ago and more than $1 higher than a year ago.

While gas may hit $4 a gallon across the country within a week or two, many analysts believe it will begin to fall, perhaps by Memorial Day, as more gas becomes available.

Benchmark crude rose 7 cents to $112.93 a barrel in early trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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At least seven people were injured when a bomb outside the entrance of a Baghdad church exploded on Easter Sunday, an Iraqi police official said.

The blast took place just yards (meters) from the Sacred Heart Church in Baghdad’s Karradah neighborhood. Shrapnel from the bomb struck the outside of the building, and at least four of the church’s windows were shattered. Shards of broken glass lay on the street in front of the building.

Like many Baghdad houses of worship, the church is surrounded by blast walls to protect it from such attacks.

The officer said no parishioners were inside and services had not been held in the building.

Four policemen and three civilian bystanders were wounded, said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Iraqi Christians have faced a recent wave of violence, including an attack last year against a Baghdad church that killed 68 people. Before Christmas services, al-Qaida-linked militants threatened a wave of violence against Christians, forcing many to tone down their ceremonies.

There was no such threat ahead of this Easter Sunday but authorities nonetheless stepped up security in the capital and two main northern provinces where Christians live, tightening hundreds of checkpoints that already dot the streets and snarling traffic for hours online payday loans.

About 700 Christians attended Easter services at Baghdad’s St. Joseph’s Chaldean church where security forces closed off the roads leading to it, laid razor wires and searched all worshippers before entering the church.

“Our life in Iraq is fill of fear,” Father Hanna Saad Sirop told worshippers. “But we have to live in faith and trust … we have to trust almighty God,” Hanna added.

Christians also marked Easter peacefully in the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.

Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Iraqi Christians have suffered repeated violence and harassment from Sunni Muslim extremists who view them as infidels and agents of the West, forcing many of them to flee the country either to the safer northern Kurdish self-ruled region or abroad.

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