(Reuters) – Internet search provider Google and authors group Society Men of Letters of France (SGDL) have reached an agreement that ends a dispute dating back to 2006 over the publishing of snippets of books on the internet.

The deal puts an end to an appeal procedure, the two groups wrote in a joint statement on Monday.

“The agreement was reached to promote initiatives in favor of digital books’ development and create diversity, in compliance with copyrights,” they said.

The SGDL, which says it represents 6,000 French and French speaking authors and pays special attention to copyrights with regard to new technological developments, said the agreement would protect their rights on the internet.

(Reporting by Caroline Jacobs; Editing by Mark Potter)

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc is on the preliminary list to join the Russell 3000 index, according to Russell Investments on Monday.

Facebook will be the largest addition to the index in market capitalization. The social network giant made a market debut in May. Among other IPO additions to the Russell 3000 are software maker Splunk Inc and financial services provider EverBank Financial Corp.

Apple, with market capitalization of $540.2 billion, is expected to replace ExxonMobil with $367.7 billion market cap, as the largest company in the Russell 3000, Russell Investments said. Apple grew its market capitalization by 68 percent in the last year.

The combined capitalization of stocks in the Russell 3000, which reflects about 98 percent of the investable U.S. equity universe, will decrease from $16.7 trillion at May 31, 2011 to $15.8 trillion as of May 31, 2012. Similarly, the median market capitalization will decrease from $1.04 billion to $910 million.

“Russell’s index reconstitution reflects the market decline over the past year. That said, returns have been far from uniform,” said Steve Wood, chief market strategist for North America at Russell Investments.

“Even as the flare-up in the euro zone crisis, China’s slowdown and relatively soft U.S. economic data have weighed on investor sentiment in recent weeks, the global markets showed resilience when viewed over the course of a year. Furthermore, Russell Indexes reflected diverse returns and decreased correlations across global markets in the last year, reinforcing the importance of a well-diversified global multi-asset portfolio approach.”

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by James Dalgleish)

(Reuters) – Goldman Sachs (GS.N) is close to signing a deal to sell its hedge fund administration business to U.S. bank State Street Corp (STT.N), a source familiar with the situation said, the latest deal in a sector enjoying growing demand for its back-office services.

According to the source, the U.S. investment bank is in late-stage discussions with State Street over the deal, which would create the biggest administration services provider to hedge funds worldwide.

The combined business would oversee funds of close to $700 billion, although no formal agreement has been reached, the source added.

Goldman Sachs and State Street declined to comment.

Hedge fund administrators provide back office services such as portfolio valuation and risk assessment for the $2 trillion industry.

Demand from regulators and investors for more independent assessment of fund valuations in recent years has increased hedge funds’ use of their services, prompting a series of deals in the sector as providers look to capitalize.

Earlier this year U.S. financial software provider SS&C Technologies (SSNC.O) agreed to buy hedge fund administrator GlobeOp Financial Services (GO.L), trumping an offer from buyout group TPG.

The deal values GlobeOp, which administers around $187 billion in client assets, at more than 570 million pounds ($879 million).

(Reporting by Tommy Wilkes, Douwe Miedema and Alessandra Prentice)

(This story has been corrected to fix GlobeOp’s assets figure to $187 billion from $173 billion in final paragraph)

(Reuters) – The European debt crisis poses a “significant” threat to financial stability and could undermine progress made in recent years to strengthen the global financial system, a top Federal Reserve official said on Monday.

“While the global financial system is stronger than it was three years ago, it remains vulnerable,” San Francisco Fed President John Williams said in remarks prepared for delivery at a conference on Asian banking sponsored by his regional Fed bank.

“The European sovereign debt crisis threatens banks in that continent, and, by extension, elsewhere,” he said in his opening remarks. “Clearly, it represents a significant threat to financial stability.”

(Reporting by Timothy Ahmann; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

(Reuters) – China has overhauled parts of its intellectual property laws to allow its drug makers to make cheap copies of medicines still under patent protection in an initiative likely to unnerve foreign pharmaceutical companies.

The Chinese move, outlined in documents posted on its patent law office website, comes within months of a similar move by India to effectively end the monopoly on an expensive cancer drug made by Bayer AG by issuing its first so-called “compulsory license”.

The action by China will ring alarm bells in Big Pharma, since the country is a vital growth market at a time when sales in Western countries are flagging.

The amended Chinese patent law allows Beijing to issue compulsory licenses to eligible companies to produce generic versions of patented drugs during state emergencies, or unusual circumstances, or in the interests of the public.

For “reasons of public health”, eligible drug makers can also ask to export these medicines to other countries, including members of the World Trade Organisation.

Compulsory licenses are available to nations to issue under WTO rules in certain cases where life-saving treatments are unaffordable.

“The revised version of Measures for the Compulsory Licensing for Patent Implementation came into effect from May 1, 2012,” China’s State Intellectual Property Office said in a faxed statement to Reuters.

The changes can be found on the website of China’s State Intellectual Property Office at link.reuters.com/tus68s

China is known to be looking at Gilead Sciences Inc’s tenofovir, which is recommended by the World Health Organisation as part of a first-line cocktail treatment for AIDS patients, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

China’s generic drug makers were getting ready to produce tenofovir, they added.

At a drug access workshop hosted by the United Nations and health activists in Bangkok in early June, Chinese officials spoke of the changes to its patent law. Officials from Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam also participated in the meeting.

“In May 2012, China created a change in their IPR (intellectual property rights) legislation to be able to issue compulsory licenses. China is considering further strengthening its legal framework, so as to make use of legal space to produce generic drugs,” said Bob Verbruggen, senior adviser for the UNAIDS Asia Pacific office, who was present at the workshop.

“China’s action plan at the workshop seemed to confirm that it intends to become a generic producer for the domestic and international market,” he told Reuters by telephone.

CHINA PREPARED LONG AND HARD FOR THIS

China’s move follows India’s granting of a compulsory license in March to local generic drugs firm Natco Pharma to manufacture Bayer’s cancer drug Nexavar, used for treating kidney and liver cancer.

However, China had signaled interest in the idea from at least 2008-2009, when its State Intellectual Property Office invited foreign experts to Beijing to show Chinese officials how to prepare the legal grounds for issuing compulsory licenses.

“They wanted to know the legal perspective … They wanted to know about Thailand’s IP Act that allowed us to make a CL (compulsory license) under the law for public interests, in an emergency,” said Vithaya Kulsomboon, associate professor at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, who was invited to Beijing at the time.

Kajal Bhardwaj, a legal expert from India who is working on health, HIV and human rights trade laws, said China’s move was well within the limits of international trade agreements.

“CLs have previously been issued in the region by Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and India. CLs have also been issued on multiple occasions by developed countries including the U.S. and EU member countries,” Bhardwaj said.

“It is very encouraging that China is seeking to ensure that this right … is reflected in its legal regime on intellectual property,” she added.

SABRE-RATTLING

China’s stable of generic drug makers has been producing the key ingredients – or active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) – in medicines for years, exporting them to foreign drug makers, which then sell the patented finished products back to China at prices which the average Chinese citizen often cannot afford.

In particular, the government is struggling to provide newer HIV drugs, such as Gilead’s tenofovir, known by its brand Viread and which had worldwide sales last year of $737.9 million.

China’s government, initially slow to acknowledge the problem of HIV/AIDS in the 1990s, now admits to having a ballooning number of HIV/AIDS cases.

Although Gilead moved to share its intellectual property rights on its medicines in a patent pool with generic drug makers from many countries last July in return for a small royalty, China was excluded, which meant it had to continue paying high prices for tenofovir.

Since the change in China’s patent law, Gilead has offered certain concessions, including giving China a substantial donation of tenofovir if it continues to buy the same amount, said Paul Cawthorne, coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres’ Access Campaign in Asia.

“This is all a negotiation game; this offer from Gilead came about once the news that the Chinese was considering issuing a CL came out. The end game is okay, you get a better deal or you use the CL, it’s a strategy that many countries use,” he said.

Gilead in Hong Kong declined to comment. No one was immediately available to comment at its head office in California.

All eyes are now trained on how China battles it out with big foreign drug exporters, especially from 2013 when the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will no longer give grants to China to fight HIV.

(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn in Hong Kong and Beijing newsroom; Additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and David Cowell)

Reuters – Shares in Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia (NOK1V.HE) rose 6 percent in heavy volume on Friday driven higher by speculation of takeover interest from South Korean rival Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), traders said.

The sharp rise made Nokia the biggest gainer on the FTSEurofirst 300.FTEU3 index and followed a 40 percent fall in the shares in the past three months.

Analysts played down the chances of a bid from Samsung for Nokia, which has been rapidly losing market share.

“Samsung is flying at the moment and it is hard to see what it would gain from buying Nokia,” Ovum analyst Nick Dillon said. “Any benefit it would gain from Nokia’s patent portfolio or manufacturing facilities would likely be outweighed by the complexities of integrating the two companies.”

Ben Wood, head of research at CCS Insight, said: “This is Friday madness. I can’t think of a rational reason why Samsung would want to buy Nokia at present,”

Nokia shares have moved sharply on speculation of possible takeovers since its stock dived last year due to a strategy shift in its smartphone business. Microsoft (MSFT.O), which is partnering Nokia for its new smartphones, has been seen as the most likely buyer.

Nokia declined to comment and Samsung was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki. Editing by Jane Merriman)

(Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) has extended its $2.6 billion offer to buy long-time partner Human Genome Sciences (HGSI.O) until the end of June as it battles the U.S. biotech company’s reluctant management.

The price remains unchanged at $13 a share under the longer tender, which will now expire at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) New York time on June 29, Britain’s biggest drugmaker said on Friday.

The initial tender period ran out at midnight on June 7, by when GSK had secured less than 1 percent of Human Genome shares, which are trading at a premium to its offer.

People familiar with the situation had previously told Reuters that GSK was set to extend its tender offer – a direct appeal to Human Genome shareholders over the heads of management – as it begins a process to replace the entire Human Genome board with its own nominees.

The British company has already started reaching out to executives in the drug industry as well as finance and governance experts who could be nominated as independent directors of the 12-member board.

Sources said on May 30 that GSK intended to seek approval from Human Genome shareholders to replace the board under a “consent solicitation” process, which could come in the next few weeks. No details on the process were given on Friday.

Human Genome once again rejected GSK’s bid as inadequate. It has launched an auction process, inviting GSK to participate, while at the same time adopting a “poison pill” shareholder rights plan in a bid to thwart the hostile takeover attempt.

The U.S. firm has had contacts with other companies and said on Friday that the process “continues to be active and fully underway”. But no counterbidder to GSK has emerged and bankers say GSK has an advantage over rivals because of its partnerships around key drugs.

The two companies together sell Benlysta, a new drug for the autoimmune condition lupus, and they also collaborate on two other experimental drugs for diabetes and heart disease that could become significant sellers. GSK and Human Genome share rights to Benlysta, while GSK owns the majority of the commercial upside to the other products.

Buying Human Genome would give GSK full rights to these partnered drugs, underscoring the appetite among big drugmakers for biotech products to refill their medicine chests.

But GSK may have more work to do in persuading investors that its $13-per-share bid is good enough and shares in Human Genome traded 2 percent higher at $13.50 by 1430 GMT.

That indicates investors still expect a higher price, although the stock has fallen back from a high of more than $15 hit in April, soon after the unsolicited offer was made public.

(Editing by Kate Kelland and Hans-Juergen Peters)

(Reuters) – Spain is expected to ask the euro zone for help with recapitalizing its banks this weekend, sources in Brussels and Berlin said on Friday, becoming the fourth country to seek assistance since Europe’s debt crisis began.

Five senior EU and German officials said deputy finance ministers from the single currency area would hold a conference call on Saturday morning to discuss a Spanish request for aid, although no figure for the assistance has yet been fixed.

Later the Eurogroup, which consists of the euro zone’s 17 finance ministers, will hold a separate call to discuss approving the request, the sources said.

“The announcement is expected for Saturday afternoon,” one of the EU officials said.

The dramatic development comes after Fitch Ratings cut Madrid’s sovereign credit rating by three notches to BBB on Thursday, highlighting the Spanish banking sector’s exposure to bad property loans and to contagion from Greece’s debt crisis.

“The government of Spain has realized the seriousness of their problem,” a senior German official said.

He added that an agreement needed to be reached before a Greek election on June 17 which could cause market panic and increase the threat of Athens leaving the euro zone if left-wing parties opposed to Greece’s EU/IMF bailout win.

The EU and German sources spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Spain’s deputy prime minister, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, said the government needed to have at least a preliminary estimate of how much extra capital the banks needed before taking a decision.

The International Monetary Fund is expected to announce imminently the results of its own audit.

“It’s important to respect the proceedings because it’s important to know the ground,” she told reporters, while not denying that the Eurogroup would hold a call on Spain’s needs.

“Before taking any kind of decision one should at least have a first estimate of the ground and the ground means figures.”

The European Commission’s spokesman on economic affairs said Spain had made no request for aid but the euro zone stood ready to help if necessary.

“If such a request were to be made, the instruments are there, ready to be used, in agreement with the guidelines agreed in the past,” Amadeu Altafaj said. “We are not at that point.”

EFSF FUNDS

If a request is made, Spain is expected to ask for help from the euro zone’s 440 billion euro bailout mechanism, known as the European Financial Stability Facility. The amount will depend on the IMF audit and a separate report due by June 21 from two independent assessors, Oliver Wyman and Roland Berger.

Financial industry sources told Reuters on Thursday that the IMF report, to be made public on Monday, had estimated Spanish banks’ minimum capital needs at 40 billion euros ($50 billion), rising to 90 billion euros for a fuller recapitalization.

Officials in Spain said the parameters for the IMF and the private-sector audits were effectively the same, meaning Spain could make the request for aid on the basis of the IMF figures rather than having to wait for the other assessment.

The euro zone has been under strong pressure from the United States, China, Canada and other major partners to take swift, decisive action to prevent the debt crisis spreading and causing greater damage to the world economy.

U.S. President Barack Obama said European leaders appeared to be moving in the right direction, but he also emphasized that he was being careful not to tell Europe what to do.

“They understand the seriousness of the situation and the urgent need to act,” Obama told a news conference.

Speaking in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was not pressing any country to take a bailout, saying it was up to Spain to decide what it wanted to do: “It’s down to the individual countries to turn to us,” she said.

“That has not happened so far, and therefore (we) will not exert any pressure.”

Fitch said the cost to the Spanish state of recapitalizing banks stricken by the bursting of a real estate bubble, recession and mass unemployment could be between 60-100 billion euros ($75-$125 billion) – or 6 to 9 percent of Spain’s gross domestic product. The higher figure would be in a stress scenario equivalent to Ireland’s bank crash.

BAILOUT LITE?

European shares and the euro fell amid mounting concern over Spain following the Fitch downgrade although the Spanish stock market climbed nearly two percent on the prospect of help for the banks.

While Spain would join Greece, Ireland and Portugal in receiving a European financial rescue, officials said the aid would be focused only on its banking sector, without taking the Spanish state out of credit markets.

That would be crucial to avoid overstraining the euro zone’s rescue funds, which would struggle to cover Spanish government borrowing needs for the next three years plus possible additional assistance for Portugal and Ireland.

“I think they’re trying to get a lighter support package, where the money is headed to the banks and not for financing the fiscal deficit,” said Vincent Chaigneau, head of rates strategy at Societe Generale. “But you need to know the details, the size of the program and who participates.”

While funds would be paid to Spain from the EFSF, it remains unclear whether they will go directly to the Spanish state or to the government’s bank assistance fund known as the FROB. Either way, analysts say the aid will accrue to Spain’s budget deficit.

The sudden escalation of the Spanish banking crisis, dramatized by last month’s hasty nationalization of troubled lender Bankia, has contributed to raising Italy’s borrowing costs towards danger levels as well as Spain’s.

The deputy governor of the Bank of Spain told parliamentarians on Thursday that 9 billion euros would also be needed to cover additional losses at nationalized banks CatalunyaCaixa and NovaGalicia, according to one source.

SPANISH PRIDE

The aim of a rescue package would be to relieve pressure on the state while enabling it to keep borrowing on markets.

A “bailout lite” would also help salve Spanish pride. Spain is the world’s 12th largest economy and No. 4 in the euro zone. EU and German officials have cited national pride as a barrier to requesting a full assistance program.

Any political conditions would be light, related to the banks and would probably not add to the austerity measures and structural economic reforms which Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government has already put in place, EU and German sources said.

The European Commission and Germany both agreed in principle last week that Spain should be given an extra year to bring its budget deficit down below the EU limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product because of a deep recession.

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker and Jan Strupczewski in Brussels, Andreas Rinke in Berlin and Jesus Aguado in Madrid; Writing by Paul Taylor and Luke Baker; Editing by Mike Peacock and Alastair Macdonald)

(Reuters) – Google Inc is dipping its toe into the customer-service business as the world’s largest Internet search company steps up competition with e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc.

Google rolled out a new certification service called Google Trusted Stores on Thursday that helps shoppers see which online merchants ship quickly and reliably and which ones offer great customer service.

Google has been testing the free service with online retailers including Wayfair, Timbuk2 and Beau-coup. It is open to all U.S. merchants starting on Thursday.

Google offers up to $1,000 in what it calls “purchase protection” to shoppers who opt in to the program when making a purchase.

The company has a dedicated customer service team based at its Mountain View, California, headquarters to help resolve problems if shoppers are not getting anywhere with the merchant.

Google is also working on providing its own phone-based support for shoppers in the program, said Tom Fallows, an e-commerce veteran who is now group product manager at Google Shopping.

Fallows would not say how many Google employees are working in these new customer-service positions, but he said the business is “significantly over-staffed.”

The move is unusual for Google, which is known for its tech-heavy, automated approach to business. About a year ago, the company started offering phone support for customers of its dominant AdWords online advertising service. But there are few, if any, other examples of such a hands-on, employee-centric approach to customer service, especially for consumer-facing businesses.

Google’s commitment of such resources shows how important e-commerce is to the company. In general, the company benefits if more people search online for products and are confident enough to buy.

Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor, which helps merchants sell online, said the new Trusted Stores program may be a step toward Google building an online marketplace to rival the success of Amazon.com.

Amazon’s third-party marketplace business, which lets other merchants sell through its web site, has grown rapidly in recent years and has been a big driver of Amazon’s revenue and profit growth.

This success has encouraged more shoppers to search for products on Amazon.com, rather than going to Google – a potential threat to Google’s search dominance online.

(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

(Reuters) – Stocks finished mixed on Thursday as optimism about China’s interest-rate cut was offset by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments, which dimmed hopes for more U.S. stimulus.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 46.17 points, or 0.37 percent, to end unofficially at 12,460.96. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX edged down 0.14 of a point, or 0.01 percent, to finish unofficially at 1,314.99. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC slipped 13.70 points, or 0.48 percent, to close unofficially at 2,831.02.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Jan Paschal)