All aboard: The proposed merger of Louisiana Tech University and LSU-Shreveport has been endorsed by the Ruston-Lincoln Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. The board unanimously approved a resolution last week urging area lawmakers to support a proposed merger of the two institutions into one enlarged Louisiana Tech with Ruston and Shreveport campuses. The proposed merger is the leading recommendation of a study conducted by Eva Klein and Associates and supported by the Louisiana Board of Regents. “The creation of a second Louisiana Tech campus in Shreveport will inevitably create additional interest from manufacturing companies, research firms and high-tech facilities searching for new or additional locations,” the resolution says. “This proposed merger will help secure new jobs, quality jobs, for the people of north Louisiana.”
Help wanted: Employers posted slightly more job openings and stepped up overall hiring in February. The figures suggest that modest job gains may continue in the coming months. The Labor Department reports this morning that employers posted 3.5 million job openings in February, up slightly from a revised 3.48 million in January. Job openings reached a three-year high of 3.54 million in December. The data come after a disappointing jobs report last week. Employers added only 120,000 jobs in March, about half the average that were added in the previous three months. The unemployment rate fell to 8.2%, though that was mostly because people gave up looking for work.
While the getting’s good: AOL’s $1 billion deal to sell and license patents to Microsoft is another in a series of Antiques Roadshow moments in the technology world. Faded companies have been rummaging through their assets recently, and some of them have found musty old patents that turn out to be worth a great deal. Patents have become a hot commodity in recent years. They give the holder the exclusive right to use certain technologies or business processes in the United States. Companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google and others are collecting large patent libraries and increasingly using them in lawsuits—to defend their businesses or to attack rivals. A valuable patent is less like a forgotten Rembrandt and more like a rusty-but-serviceable gun. “Patents have become legal weapons. They’re not representing ideas anymore,” says James Bessen, a lecturer at Boston University and the director of a nonprofit that studies patent issues. Check out the full feature from The Associated Press here.
Today’s poll question: Do you want the Legislature to approve a bill that would place on the November ballot a measure to strengthen gun rights in Louisiana?
