Apple’s share prices soared on Tuesday as media reports began to take it for granted that the vendor would launch its much-talked-about tablet Jan. 27. Apple shares closed at $215.04, up 4.42 percent from Monday’s closing price of $205.93. The market appeared to discount Apple’s entanglement in a legal thicket — Cupertino is embroiled in lawsuits with both Nokia and Kodak. Meanwhile, signs that Apple will improve its showing in the corporate market are emerging, which is yet another positive indicator for the company.

Maybe the technology press should hire Robert Langdon to take a look at the colorful invitation Apple sent out Monday regarding its Jan. 27th event. The symbologist hero of Dan Brown’s bestselling novels might have found evidence that Steve Jobs is indeed preparing to launch an e-reader/tablet computing device that will let consumers download The DaVinci Code, either in book or movie form. Once again, the planets and the media are rearranging themselves in conjunction with an impending Apple product announcement.

Almost three weeks later than originally promised , Apple has finally added support for Windows 7 to its Boot Camp technologies in Mac OS X, which let Mac computers dual boot between the two OSes. The support comes via Boot Camp 3.1 (where Snow Leopard shipped with version 3.0), which comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit variants. There's also a third update for those users who have already installed Windows Vista under Boot Camp and would like to perform an in-place upgrade to Windows 7.

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Apple Finally Adds Windows 7 Support to Boot Camp

Apple continued its legal tit-for-tat with Nokia over patents by filing its own complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, urging the agency to ban import of Nokia handsets. The move is identical to the one Nokia made against Apple with the ITC in December. The two companies have been locked in a back-and-forth legal battle over patents for months, with each side alleging the other has infringed on critical patents. It is unclear whether the ITC will take up either companies’ complaint, but a decision likely won’t come until next year. Article

Motorola is seeking a restraining order against a former top handset executive to block him from divulging confidential information to  rival Nokia.

Motorola is trying to prevent David Hartsfield from becoming vice president of Nokia’s global CDMA business. The company filed an emergency motion last week in Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois; the case has since been moved to a U.S. District Court. Hartsfield resigned from Motorola Dec. 2 after spending a decade at the company. Before he resigned, Hartsfield was responsible for CDMA handset development, including for devices such as the Droid for Verizon Wireless.

In its filing, Motorola said Hartsfield had “access to Motorola’s most competitively sensitive information,” and that his new job with Nokia “inevitably will require him to use and/or disclose Motorola’s trade secret information.”

“Hartsfield cannot erase his knowledge of Motorola’s confidential information,” the lawsuit said. “In working on Nokia’s CDMA mobile devices, Hartsfield could not compartmentalize his knowledge to prevent himself from using Motorola’s confidential information.”

In a response, Hartsfield’s attorney said Motorola’s request was “grossly inadequate,” and noted that CDMA is an industry-wide standard, not “secret proprietary information.” Additionally, the filing said Motorola has not asserted any wrongdoing by Hartsfield.

A Nokia spokeswoman told FierceWireless the company couldn’t comment on the issue.

This is not the first time Motorola has sued former employees who went to work for rivals, such as Apple and Research In Motion. In 2008, Motorola sued a former executive, claiming he violated a two-year non-compete agreement by becoming the head of global iPhone sales for Apple; the case was dismissed last year.

For more:
- see this Crain’s Chicago Business article
- see this Chicago Tribune article

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