Business

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with a big patent ruling.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

INSKEEP: This is a case of Apple against Samsung - and if that sounds familiar, it's because there's more than one patent case here.

While a jury in California deliberates a huge multibillion dollar patent infringement case, which we've been discussing this week, a ruling on a similar case with the same players has been issued today in South Korea.

One night in the late 1960s, Eugene Gagliardi was lying awake in bed trying to figure out how to save his company. He was thinking about the Philly cheesesteak.

Gagliardi ran a family business that sold hamburgers and other meat to restaurant chains in the Philadelphia area. But within the span of a few months, the company had lost several of its biggest customers.

The Federal Trade Commission says that when the marketers of the "Ab Circle Pro" said three minutes a day would suffice to give you rock-hard abs, they were over-hyping their product.

Today, the FTC announced after they filed complaints, the marketers of the fitness contraption have agreed to dole out as much as $25 million in refunds. Consumers who fell for the informercial, which the FTC says aired more that 10,000 times in 2009 and 2010, can request a refund by clicking here.