Business Briefs

■ Hon Hai tops patent list again
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) was top in terms of patent application and approval for the fourth consecutive year last year, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) said yesterday.
IPO officials said in terms of patent applications last year, the top three were the same as 2005, with Hon Hai top of the list with 1,830 applications, followed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) with 873 and Inventec Electronics Corp (英業達) with 819.
In terms of applications approved, Hon Hai had 898, ITRI had 583 and Inventec had 493.
Royal Philips Electronics NV was top among foreign institutional organizations in terms of patent applications and Sony was top with 401 patent approvals.

■ Science park revenues up
The Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區) recorded excellent growth last year with its annual revenues reaching NT$178.5 billion (US$5.42 billion), nearly three times the NT$60.09 billion recorded in 2005, officials said yesterday.
Officials attributed the rapid increase to manufacturers that added their operations to the park over the last year. New operations helped boost revenues by more than NT$50 billion over the original estimate of NT$120 billion.
The officials estimated that revenues could continue to grow to NT$240 billion this year.

■ NT dollar slightly lower
The New Taiwan dollar weakened against the US dollar in Taipei yesterday, declining NT$0.027 to close at NT$32.995.
A total volume of US$1.2 billion was recorded during the day's trading.