Happy MLK Day: Just a Few Items

Folks, happy Martin Luther King Day to you, a time to remember a great person who brought tremendous good to the U.S. and to the world.

Markets are closed in observance. I thought I’d offer just a handful of tidbits that came over the transom in the last few days.

RBC Capital’s Mike Abramsky, who maintains a Buy rating on shares of Apple (AAPL), reflects on the announcement late Friday that the U.S. International Trade Commission denied some patent-infringement claims by Apple against Moto, as related by The Wall Street Journal’s Drew Fitzgerald. Moto’s general counsel, Scott Offer, issued a statement saying the company was pleased with the judge’s initial determination Moto was not infringing the three patents. Abramsky writes that Apple still has plenty of ways it could stymie Android: “While this preliminary ruling is a setback in Apple’s litigation against Android, Apple has multiple irons in the fire in its patent war, which includes multiple defendants, patents, and venues (US ITC, US Federal Courts, and international). Apple needs a single win over a crucial feature or technology to impact Android’s user experience.” Abramsky notes the final ruling on the matter is expected May 14th.

Sanford Bernstein’s Mark Li yesterday reiterated an Underperform rating on shares of chip maker MediaTek (2454TW) after lowering his estimates and lowering his price target to $210 from $220 in New Taiwan Dollars. Li thinks Mediatek will have a hard time selling phone chipsets in competition with Qualcomm (QCOM): “MediaTek’s main customer base will be Chinese handset makers (96 million units) and it will have little traction at Samsung, Nokia, & other non-Chinese players. MediaTek doesn’t have compelling products for TD-SCDMA & CDMA2000 (together 66 million) either. Even for WCDMA and Chinese customers (64 million) to whom MediaTek devotes most of its resources, we believe Qualcomm will be the major supplier with its leadership in technologies, cost, customer access and its readiness for lower margin.”

ISI Group’s Brian Marshall on Saturday raised estimates for Apple to reflect better sales of the iPhone and iPad than he’d previously projected. Marshall raised his fiscal Q2 projection for the quarter ended last month to $41.3 billion in revenue and $10.75 per share in profit, up from a prior $38.8 billion and $10.30. That is higher than the consensus estimate of $38.7 billion and $9.97 per share. He also raised his 2012 calendar year estimate to $147.6 billion in revenue and $38 per share from a prior $142.8 billion and $35. Marshall thinks Apple may have sold 32 million units of the iPhone in the December quarter and 14 million iPads. Marshall maintains a Buy rating on Apple shares and a $500 price target.

And Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) is seeking to borrow up to $1 billion from overseas banks, the first time its floated debt outside of South Korea since 1997, in order to expand its manufacturing facilities, write Bloomberg’s Jun Yang and Taejin Park, citing a company spokesperson. The money would apparently be used toward expansion of the company’s facility in Austin, Texas for making computer chips.