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Emerson said today that is has purchased the Marine Container and Boiler business of Johnson Controls, Inc.

The Ferguson-based manufacturer said it made the acquisition to expand its refrigeration technology offerings to shippers. Terms were not disclosed.

The Johnson unit is based in Denmark and supplies equipment that runs refrigerated sea containers and marine boilers, as well as equipment that monitors the temperature of shipping containers on land or at sea payday loan lenders. The technology is connects more than 650,000 containers and 2,200 ships to a centralized monitoring server.

It will become part of Emerson’s Climate Technologies division.

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Americans have pumped less gas every week for the past year.

During those 52 weeks, gasoline consumption dropped by 4.2 billion gallons, or 3 percent, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse. The decline is the longest since a 51-week period during the recession.

The main reason: higher gas prices. The national average for a gallon of gas is $3.88, the highest ever for this time of year, and experts say it could be $4.25 by late April. As a result, Americans are taking fewer trips to restaurants and shopping malls. When they take a vacation, they’re staying closer to home.

But the decline in gas consumption is also a sign that efforts to push car makers to produce vehicles with better gas mileage are paying off. The average new car now gets nearly 24 miles to the gallon, compared with about 20 mpg just four years ago, according to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

“I’d expect to see lower gasoline consumption for several years to come,” Rice University energy expert Ken Medlock says.

Americans have cut back on fill-ups for extended periods before. In 2008, gas spiked from $3.04 to $4.11 per gallon in seven months. It wasn’t until January 2009, when the national average for gas had dropped to $1.86 that consumption increased. Drivers bought more gasoline for 23 weeks in a row.

“The spike in 2008 was a real shock to the system,” Medlock says. “There’s still a residual impact on people’s driving behavior.”

There were other stretches of reduced gas use, notably two into the 1970’s and one in the early 1980’s. But in those cases, Americans eventually went back to driving big cars and trucks that guzzled gas.

This time may be different. Medlock thinks economic growth will be too modest and gas prices will stay too high for Americans to start driving more anytime soon. Economists expect the U.S. economy to grow 2.5 percent in 2012. The government estimates that gas will average a record $3.79 per gallon for the year.

John Gamel, who oversees MasterCard SpendingPulse’s weekly consumption report, points to rising sales of fuel-efficient vehicles.

“People have gotten used to elevated prices and they’ve made their long-term purchases,” Gamel says. “They’re going to be using less fuel.”

Consumers now care more if a car gets good gas mileage than if it’s reliable, stylish or comes with a great deal, according to a survey of more than 24,000 new-vehicle owners taken last summer and fall by J.D. Power and Associates. That wasn’t the case in the nine previous years that J.D. Power conducted the survey.

Automakers have listened to consumers, and responded to stricter government fuel economy requirements. They’ve improved engines and transmissions so cars burn less fuel. They’ve also made cars more aerodynamic, boosting mileage by cutting wind drag. The government is gradually increasing gas mileage requirements so that by 2025, cars and trucks will have to average 54.5 mpg.

Between February 2011 and February 2012, the combined city-highway mileage of a new vehicle sold in the U.S rose to 23.7 mpg from 22.7. Better gas mileage has a huge impact on the overall economy. At $3.86 per gallon, U.S. drivers would save $35.8 billion per year with a 1 mpg improvement for the entire fleet of cars, trucks and buses, according to Michael Sivak, a research professor with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

Consumers would appreciate the help. The rise in gas prices has been so steep that they’re still spending more on gas than a year ago despite using less.

Gasoline prices rose by 24 percent in the last 52 weeks, according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. MasterCard, which collects purchase receipts from more than 100,000 service stations around the country, said spending on gas rose by 20 percent during the period.

In 2011, Americans spent 8.4 percent of their household income on gasoline, or about $4,155, compared with 6.7 percent in 2010, according to experts at OPIS.

W.M. Lewis, a general contractor in Anchorage, Alaska, says he is spending as much as $150 a week on gas. He’s consolidating his errands, but still limiting his driving because fuel keeps getting more expensive.

“It’s changing everybody’s plans,” he says. “You have less money to spend.”

Behind all this is the high price of oil. Brent crude, which is used to price most of the oil used to make gasoline at many U.S. coastal refineries, has jumped by 16 percent this year to more than $124 per barrel. Benchmark U.S. crude has risen 9 percent this year to more than $107 per barrel.

Increased gas use by the growing number of drivers in China and other developing nations more than makes up for the drop in the U.S. That contributes to an increase in global demand for oil, which in turn pushes the price higher. Fear of a disruption to oil supplies from the Middle East also is keeping oil prices at lofty levels.

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Krisher reported from Detroit. Associated Press Writer Rachel D’Oro in Anchorage contributed to this report.

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Federal trade officials today announced a decision to impose modest tariffs on solar panels from China after concluding that the government there unfairly subsidized manufacturers.

But the duties, ranging from 2.9 percent to 4.73 percent, are less than some analysts and industry officials had anticipated, raising questions as to how much U.S. manufacturers will benefit.

Tuesday’s decision stems from a complaint by the Oregon-based subsidiary of Germany’s SolarWorld AG and six other manufacturers accusing Chinese rivals of dumping crystalline silicon solar cells and panels in the United States at artificially low prices and receiving billions of dollars in Chinese government subsidies.

The resulting investigation is among several pending trade cases that have escalated tensions between the economic superpowers in recent months. It has also fractured the U.S. solar industry during a period of record growth.

SolarWorld sought tariffs to offset the flood of low-cost Chinese solar panels that now make up about half of the U.S. market, up from 8 percent in 2008.

Sales of Chinese-made solar panels in the U.S. has quadrupled over the past two years to $3.1 billion in 2011, according to the Commerce Department.

Meanwhile, prices in the United States fell by 50 percent, leading at least a dozen American manufacturers to close plants, lay off workers or go bankrupt, SolarWorld said.

But solar developers and installers have benefited the rapid decline that contributed to a record 1,855 megawatts of solar-power generating capacity going on line last year, according to GTM Research.

Solar developers including California-based SunEdison — a unit of O’Fallon, Mo.-based MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. — say tariffs on Chinese imports would raise prices for consumers and be a net job killer.

The majority of the U.S. solar industry’s 100,000 jobs are installers, distributors and electricians who work for small firms “downstream” of the manufacturing process, and those jobs would be in jeopardy if solar prices rise, they say.

Jigar Shah, president of the coalition, whose members include MEMC, called Tuesday’s decision is “relatively positive” and said it wouldn’t “significantly raise solar prices in the United States.”

“This decision clearly demonstrates that the Commerce Department did not find the Chinese government engaged in massive subsidization,” Shah said.

But SolarWorld and other manufacturers who brought the case said it affirms what they alleged — that Chinese manufacturers benefited from unfair government assistance.

The coalition of solar manufacturers that filed the complaint said the duties announced Tuesday are consistent with the government’s findings in other countervailing duties cases involving China.

Gordon Brinser, president of SolarWorld Industries America Inc., said Tuesday’s decision is “the first step in a process that will roll out over the next several months.”

The companies that filed the complaint didn’t ask for a specific level of countervailing duties. But they did seek anti-dumping duties of 100 percent or more. And that part of the case is yet to be decided.

The Commerce Department is continuing its look into allegations that China sold panels in U.S. at below-market prices. A separate set of anti-dumping tariffs could be imposed based on the results. A preliminary decision is expected on May 17.

“If we address unfair trade practices in the U.S. solar market, we can get back to our business of expanding American manufacturing and jobs in the renewable energy sector,” Carlo Santoro, an executive at New Jersey-based MX Solar USA, said in a statement. “We look forward to getting back to the fair and legal competition that serves everyone best.”

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In the city of St. Louis, there is no bigger land-owner than the city of St. Louis.

Over the past four decades, the city has accumulated more than 11,000 parcels of real estate that no one else wants, long-empty houses and thousands of vacant lots, big downtown buildings and even a 30-acre cemetery. It sells some parcels every month and accumulates more after five annual tax sales. But most of the land just sits, waiting.

Last week’s deal to sell more than 1,200 parcels on the near north side to developer Paul McKee highlights the potential for this “land-banking.” McKee, who already owns 800 parcels in the area, will be able to market more and larger sites to potential tenants for his massive NorthSide Regeneration project under the deal. It’s progress, says the city.

But as land banks bloom from New York to Nebraska, St. Louis’ experience illustrates two simple facts: That this practice is no panacea for blight and that any real progress requires lots of patience.

St. Louis has been banking land since 1971. Residents and businesses were fleeing for the suburbs, leaving behind crumbling buildings with unpaid taxes. The city wanted a central repository to hold that property, clear the title, maintain it, and sell it to someone to redevelop. The Land Reutilization Authority — the nation’s first city-run land bank — was born.

LRA started taking properties that went unsold at St. Louis sheriff’s office tax sales, and its inventory quickly ballooned into the thousands. Despite a constant churn of sales, inventory has stayed high ever since. Today, the LRA and two smaller land banks own 11,136 parcels, more than two square miles of ground; they’ll still own 9,900 after the NorthSide sale closes. Mowing and maintaining all this costs $2.7 million a year.

The authority has some success stories, such as the old City Hospital — now high-end condos — and large-scale rebuilding in the Gate District and Gaslight Square. But it still has vast holdings, especially in battered sections of north St. Louis, neighborhoods such as The Ville, Hyde Park and Wells Goodfellow, where as much as one-fifth of all real estate is owned by LRA. Much of the land is vacant lots, but there are also plenty of empty buildings, with crumbling roofs, patchy walls and the LRA’s trademark dark red boards over the doors.

The trouble, said Otis Williams, who oversees the authority for St. Louis Development Corp., is that there just isn’t much interest in these properties, even at a price tag of just a few thousand dollars.

“The goal is to get each of them back on the tax rolls,” Williams said. “The problem we have is the market. There’s a real lack of demand.”

But some say the LRA holds on to too much property for too long.

Every month, at a meeting in a downtown office building, the LRA considers offers. Typically it receives dozens. Some are from people who want to buy the plot next to their house for a sideyard. Some come from rehabbers who want to turn a shell into apartments, or people looking for an affordable way to purchase a home.

In a report last year, free-market thinktank the Show-Me Institute combed through eight years of LRA records, and found that the agency rejected more than 40 percent of purchase offers, often saying the land was being held for “future development.” In some cases, LRA turned down offers for the same property several times.

That seems to run counter to the goal of putting property back on the tax rolls and getting it redeveloped, said Audrey Spalding, the Show-Me policy analyst who led the study.

“When you turn down an offer to purchase property today in the hopes of a future, better development tomorrow, you are turning down a certain offer, and property tax revenue, in the hopes that a future offer will materialize,” Spalding said. “In this economy, such a bet is ill-advised.”

Williams said the LRA weighs a number of factors, including the potential for future development and whether the buyer’s plan for the site fits the city’s plan for the area no fax pay day loan. But, he said, a major reason why sales get turned down is because the buyer doesn’t have the resources to redevelop the property.

“We’re not going to sell to just anybody,” he said. “They’ve got to be able to do something with it.

If not, he said, it’s quite possible that the land will just wind up back with LRA a few years down the road, maybe in worse shape than it is now. The LRA has changed policies in one regard, though. Williams said it has tried to sell more land as side yards, and to neighborhood groups that want to create community gardens and parks.

‘BANKING’ TREND

In the meantime, new land banks — often with more powers than the LRA — are sprouting up across the country.

Michigan now has 41 land banks, and Ohio has expanded its land-banking programs. New York is readying to launch them in five cities this year, proposals are before state lawmakers now in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nebraska, and Kansas City officials are asking the Missouri General Assembly to create one there.

“More states are really recognizing that vacant and abandoned properties impose tremendous costs on their cities and their neighborhoods,” said Frank Alexander, a law professor at Emory University in Atlanta who works on land bank legislation. “(Land banks) can step in where there’s no market.”

Most of these new banks would be more powerful than the LRA, with access to more funds to rehab or demolish buildings and clean up sites for reuse. New York law gives land banks the right to all land that is seized for unpaid property taxes, not just the sites left over after investors have picked over sheriff auctions — which is how St. Louis’ LRA accumulates most of its land.

That’s huge, said Dan Kildee, who developed the land bank in Genesee County, Mich. — home of Flint — because it means land banks get some good properties to work with, too.

“The land bank gets to be the smartest and luckiest speculator,” Kildee said. Then they can market the properties or partner with nonprofit groups or developers to rebuild them. And more sales means more money for demolition of properties that can’t be rebuilt.

Funding demolition has been a challenge in St. Louis. It costs about $8,000 for LRA to knock down a structure, and it owns roughly 2,000. In recent years, the agency has demolished 200 to 240 buildings a year, though that number plunged to 142 in 2010 because of budget cuts. Other cities — most notably Detroit — have used federal money designed for foreclosure relief to knock down thousands of houses. St. Louis used most of that money on rehab work. The LRA does, though, plan to spend much of the $3.2 million its getting from McKee on much-needed demolition.

Take the 3300 block of Blair Avenue in Hyde Park, where the shells of three LRA-owned brick four-families sit crumbling in a row, their roofs gone and brick walls caving in. Across the street, another LRA house, this one of blue shingles, sits empty, its roof rotting. On a recent afternoon, a boy played in a fort built of mattresses in the yard. Otherwise the street was dead.

Just a few blocks away, construction crews are working, rehabbing 27 buildings scattered across several blocks in a project called Hyde Park South. When they’re done, there will be 50 affordable apartments.

Most of the buildings were bought from the LRA, said Michele Duffe, a development consultant who is working on the project, and the former LRA director herself. Duffe’s firm and the development arm of nearby Bethlehem Lutheran Church have built 206 units of housing in the neighborhood, with 40 more in the pipeline.

Buying all those parcels from individual owners, instead of a land bank, said Duffe, would have been impossible.

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As any driver knows, rising gas prices can put a dent in a household budget. For small business owners, it can hurt _ or even wipe out _ profits.

The recent rise in the price of gas is pressuring business owners to find ways to protect their earnings. Some of their strategies are simple, such as using GPS devices to track fuel usage. Others are drastic _ like moving manufacturing operations to the U.S. from Asia.

Small business owners have navigated this road before _ most recently in 2008 when the price of gas rose to a national average of $4.11 a gallon. But gas is expected to surpass that record and reach $4.25 by late April. And even if the price follows its usual pattern of gradually falling back from a high reached in the spring, it will still be expensive for the rest of the year.

Here’s a look at how some companies are coping:

A DIRECT HIT

Chris Hundley runs Limousine Connection, a 31-car limousine service in Los Angeles. He likens the surge in gas prices to “being run into by someone without insurance” _ there’s no way to avoid having to pay.

In 2007 Limousine Connection began adding a 3 percent fuel surcharge to its bills to offset the cost of gas. Since then, the rate has crept up to 10 percent. Hundley says customers have come to understand the necessity for a fuel surcharge, and prefer it to a rate increase.

But the company doesn’t start charging extra on its base hourly rate the minute gas prices rise. For customers that have contracts with Limousine Connection, he’ll wait 30 days, and until prices have gone up 10 percent, before raising the surcharge. If prices rise, say, only 7 percent, he won’t raise it. “We are eating it _ it’s the cost of doing business,” he says.

Hundley also tracks fuel usage. Speeding or idling for extended periods wastes gas, so Hundley monitors driver behavior using the GPS systems installed in his fleet. When the company detects wasteful patterns a manager sits down with the employee to explain how he can help the company keep down fuel expenses. Limousine Connection is so serious about saving gas that, in some cases, it has issued verbal warnings to some drivers.

Hundley also has added more fuel-efficient vehicles to its fleet. The company has some hybrids, and all except a few Mercedes use regular, rather than premium, gas.

CHEAPER TO MAKE IT IN THE U.S.

The rising cost of jet fuel has convinced Seesmart Inc. to make the commercial and household lights that it sells in U.S. factories instead of Asia. Ray Sjolseth, president of the Simi Valley, Calif.-based company, says that the savings he used to get from manufacturing overseas is being wiped out by higher air freight rates.

Sjolseth says his customers tend to have last-minute deadlines. “We don’t have a choice but to air freight the products,” he says He estimates that 80 percent of his goods are shipped by air and that rising rates are raising his manufacturing costs between 5 percent and 8 percent.

So Sjolseth’s solution is to move his manufacturing to the U.S. He currently has one factory in California and expects to have one in Chicago operating by the end of the year. He estimates that a year from now, he’ll save between 5 percent and 10 percent because he won’t be getting shipments by air.

SHIFTING RESOURCES

Higher gas prices are cutting into travel budgets and that’s hurting Towne Park Systems’ revenue. The Annapolis, Md., company runs valet parking services for hotels across the country. These days, fewer guests are parking cars in hotel lots so the hotels don’t need as many attendants.

Town Park responded by shifting some staffers to different jobs, says Kirk Pozadzides, the company’s general manager. The company also provides concierge and other services for hotel guests. Now, the employee who parks cars may shift to working as a concierge.

The company also added “park and fly” services. Towne Park finds unused spaces in garages near airports, and shuttles passengers to airline terminals. It costs a traveler less to use the service than it does to park in an airport lot, Pozadzides says.

“You have to find creative ways to artificially drive revenue,” he says.

WORKING WITH VENDORS

The surge in gas prices in 2008 was a shock for Capriotti’s, a chain of sandwich shops based in Las Vegas. CEO Ashley Morris says the company didn’t pay much attention to a clause in his company’s contracts with distributors that said Capriotti’s would pay more for deliveries if the price of gas went up. So when gas soared that spring and summer, the company was paying far more than it expected for food, paper products and other supplies.

“It hit our business fairly hard,” Morris says.

Now, the surcharge rises and falls based on the price of diesel gas. This time around, he says, Capriotti’s won’t suffer. “We heavily negotiated a sliding scale.”

DELIVERY DILEMMA

Companies that make deliveries are also hurting. Ricky Eisen’s catering business in New York has two trucks and a van. She used to pay $40 to $60 a day for gas for each truck. Now it costs her $72 to $76. And she pays more to vendors for deliveries.

“I’m getting squeezed at both ends,” says Eisen, owner of Between the Bread. “It’s enough to cut a dent in the profit.”

Eisen held out for a long time _ until March 2011 _ before she began tacking on fuel surcharges for her deliveries. She has charged 5 percent extra. Now, she says, “I’m thinking as fuel prices rise, I’m going to have to increase the percentage. Right now, I want to keep it where it is.”

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The Federal Reserve’s announcement that it is unlikely to raise its benchmark interest rate until late 2014 is simply its “best guess,” Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.

The Fed chairman made clear during a news conference Wednesday that the decision to leave interest rates unchanged for three more years was not ironclad.

The central bank’s ability to forecast that far out is limited, Bernanke says, and the Fed could adjust the time frame for when it will raise rates if economic conditions change.

Still, he said the U.S. economy remains weak and that all signs suggest the Fed won’t change its record-low rate for another three years.

“Unless there is a substantial strengthening of the economy in the near term, it’s a pretty good guess we will be keeping rates low for some time,” Bernanke said after the Fed concluded its two-day policy meeting.

The central bank has kept its key rate at a record low near zero for about three years.

Bernanke also said the Fed has not ruled out bolder steps to boost economic growth, such as a third round of bond purchases.

“If inflation is going to remain below target for an extended period and unemployment progress is very slow … there is a case for additional policy action,” he said.

“I would not say we are out of ammunition no teletrack payday loan. We still have tools.”

Prior to the news conference, the Fed downgraded its outlook for U.S. economic growth this year. It forecasts the economy to grow between 2.2 percent and 2.7 percent in 2012, according to its updated economic forecasts. That’s down from November’s forecast of between 2.5 percent and 2.9 percent.

Many economists expect Europe will suffer a recession this year, which will slow U.S. growth.

Still, the Fed said it expects unemployment to fall low as 8.2 percent. That’s an improvement from November’s bottom rate of 8.5 percent.

In December, the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent _ the lowest level in nearly three years _ after the sixth straight month of solid hiring.

Inflation has been relatively tame and the Fed doesn’t see that changing over the next three years.

Bernanke refused to answer a question asking whether he would resign if one of his Republican critics is elected president.

“As long as I have a job to do, I’m going to do everything to help the Federal Reserve. That’s my answer,” he said.

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Kia has announced the recall of nearly 146,000 vehicles with faulty airbag systems.

The models affected are the 2006-2008 Kia Optima and the 2007-2008 Kia Rondo. Due to a flawed spring system that may become damaged over time, the driver’s side airbag in these cars may not deploy properly in the event of a crash, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a recall alert.

Kia reported the problem last week, and the recall is expected to begin in March, NHTSA said. Customers affected can have the problem fixed at dealerships free of charge.

Kia said in a statement that it was not aware of any injuries or airbag non-deployments associated with the problem to date payday loans. The issue was discovered "as a result of the regular monitoring of field data to ensure product quality," the company said.

For more information, car owners can contact NHTSA’s vehicle safety hotline at 1-888-327-4236 or visit www.safecar.gov. They can also call Kia’s Consumer Assistance Center at 1-800-333-4542 

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Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said monetary policy has influenced inflation and price expectations, even with the benchmark interest rate near zero since December 2008.

European stocks rose on Friday as investors set aside concerns about the euro’s debt crisis to focus on the impending release of monthly U.S. jobs data, which many hope will confirm a mild recovery in the world’s largest economy.

Asian market indexes closed lower as they reacted to poor economic and financial indicators out of Europe the previous day. That stream of poor European data continued on Friday, with new information showing a drop in retail sales and economic sentiment among consumers and businesses. Unemployment in the 17-nation eurozone, meanwhile, remained at a worrying 10.3 percent.

Traders expect 2012 to be a tough one for Europe, as it slides back toward recession, and appeared relieved to have more upbeat U.S. economic indicators to focus on Friday.

Analysts are projecting hiring gains of about 150,000 when the U.S. Labor Department issues the December jobs report. That would mark a six-month stretch in which the economy generated 100,000 jobs or more in each month. Expectations of the data rose on Thursday, when the private payrolls agency ADP said its own calculations for hiring gains were much stronger than forecast.

An improvement in the U.S. labor market is crucial for global markets because American consumer spending accounts for a fifth of the world’s economic activity. A recovery in the U.S. would also mitigate the impact of the sharp slowdown in Europe.

Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent to 5,644.55, while Germany’s DAX rose 0.6 percent to 6,131.25. France’s CAC-40 rose 0.8 percent to 3,170.85. Ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street, Dow Jones futures rose almost 0.1 percent to 12,334 and S&P 500 futures gained 0.1 percent to 1,274.50.

Although upbeat U.S. data could push stocks higher, gains were likely to be limited by the lingering fears about Europe’s debt crisis. Italy’s benchmark 10-year bond yield edged further above 7 percent, a borrowing rate that is considered unsustainable over the longer term.

Italy, along with many other European governments, has to roll over huge amounts of debt in coming months. It is trying to restore investor confidence in its public finances to get those bond yields down and pay lower rates when it auctions its bonds to raise cash from capital markets.

Traders will watch comments from Italian Premier Mario Monti, who will hold talks in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday.

Banks, meanwhile, are hurting due to fears that they will take big losses on their holdings of government debt and will struggle to raise new cash to plug those holes.

Trading in UniCredit, Italy’s largest bank, was halted on Thursday after the stock lost a quarter of its value in two days. The bank said Wednesday it would need to offer huge discounts to investors to raise money in a new share sale. The stock was down another 11 percent on Friday.

Longer-term concerns about the euro and the region’s financial system pushed the common currency to 15-month lows on Thursday. It recovered slightly on Friday, rising 0.1 percent to $1.2808.

Outside the eurozone, Hungary was sliding deeper into its own financial crisis. It had to pay a staggeringly high interest rate of 10 percent on its 12-month debt. That is far above the 7 percent level that forced Greece and Portugal to seek emergency bailouts to prevent them from defaulting on their debts.

Investor confidence in the country has deteriorated to the point that the country is considering asking the International Monetary Fund for a standby rescue loan.

Asian indexes ended mostly lower as they reacted to the previous day’s European market jitters. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index closed 1.2 percent lower at 8,390.35. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.2 percent at 18,593.06 and South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.1 percent to 1,843.14. Benchmarks in Taiwan and Indonesia also fell. India and Singapore rose.

In mainland China, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.7 percent to 2,163.39, while the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index gained 0.5 percent to 817.78.

Japanese stocks are hurt by the yen’s rise against the dollar, which makes exports less competitive internationally. On Friday, the dollar dropped another 0.1 percent to 77.07 yen.

Benchmark oil for February delivery rose 60 cents to $102.41 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell by $1.41 to end Thursday at $101.81 in New York.

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Apple Inc. won a small victory on Friday in its global patent battle with rival Samsung, after Australia’s highest court temporarily extended a ban on sales of Samsung’s Galaxy tablet computers in the country.

Samsung Electronics Co. is desperate to begin selling the Galaxy in Australia in time for Christmas sales, but the High Court’s decision means the device can’t go on the market until at least Dec. 9.

Apple took Samsung to court in Australia after accusing the Suwon, South Korea-based company of copying its iPad and iPhone. In October, a Federal Court judge ordered Samsung to halt sales of the device ahead of a trial. Samsung appealed, and on Wednesday, a full bench of the Federal Court threw out the earlier ruling and said Galaxy sales could resume on Friday.

But Apple immediately appealed that decision to the High Court, which on Friday said the temporary injunction against sales would be extended for another week while it considers Apple’s latest arguments.

“Samsung believes Apple has no basis for its application for leave to appeal and will vigorously oppose this to the High Court,” Samsung said in a statement.

The legal back-and-forth is all part of a larger, international battle over the technology giants’ competing tablets. Cupertino, California-based Apple struck first when it sued Samsung in the United States in April, alleging the product design, user interface and packaging of the Galaxy “slavishly copy” the iPhone and iPad. Samsung hit back with lawsuits accusing Apple of patent infringement of its wireless telecommunications technology.

The companies have now filed lawsuits in 10 countries. Courts in several nations, including Germany and the Netherlands, have issued rulings that favor Apple.

Apple spokeswoman Fiona Martin declined to comment on Friday’s ruling, instead issuing a general statement blasting Samsung.

“It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging,” Apple said in the statement. “This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we’ve said many times before, we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

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