F1 gets green flag after writ pit stop

Games publisher Psygnosis has won an important victory in its legal battle with Formula One Constructors' Association (Foca), the commercial arm of the Formula One association, over trademark problems in its game F1 97.

Foca tried to get an interlocutory injunction against Psygnosis which would have stopped the publisher selling the game at all, regardless of changes to the packaging.

The High Court threw out the request and refused the Association leave to appeal.

Retailers complained that they had been left in the dark about the situation and were confused as to the action they should take. Virgin and Dixons have both pulled the title from their shelves. Independents are divided on the matter - some have pulled the game and others are continuing to sell it.

Bernie Ecclestone, head of Foca, was unavailable for comment. The two companies were in negotiations over the issue for seven months and Foca was well aware of the release date.

One industry source said Psygnosis was a victim of its own success - the popularity of the game made it a more tempting target for litigation.

Alan Kilby, operations director at Electronics Boutique, said he was disappointed it was not selling the game but he had received a letter from Psygnosis asking him to withdraw the game and had returned all copies.

Roger Bennett, director general of Elspa, said: 'It's most unfortunate that the situation has arisen but I think demand for the product will be increased by these actions.'

Graham Hopper, AST's European general manager, left the company on 24 October after completing the buyout by Samsung.

Con Mallen, AST's UK marketing director, will take over in the interim.

Chip Lacy, president and CEO at Micro Warehouse, has resigned suddenly from the US giant reseller as a result of a disagreement over strategy.

During the last year, Micro Warehouse has been hit by falling Macintosh sales but has focused its efforts on Windows products. Lacy was CEO of Ingram Micro from 1985 until he left amid a dispute in May 1996.

Frontline is expected to unveil far-reaching changes to its business model this week in a bid to improve its customer service and ensure efficiency.

Japanese PC software outfit Softbank has reduced the price it is paying for Kingston Technology from $1.51 billion to $1.17 billion because of Kingston's weaker than expected performance.

Compaq has been found to provide the worst support among PC manufacturers, according to a poll of 10,000 users in US publication PC Home. Gateway 2000 and Dell came out on top.

Silicon Graphics is expected to reveal a massive restructure including lay-offs as a response to lower than expected Q4 results to 30 September.

Samsung is suing Fujitsu, claiming its SDRam chips contain features covered by Samsung's patents. A patent agreement between the two companies expired last year.