There is even more money to be made from the Man of Steel on retail shelves with more than 20 companies offering Superman-themed products. The items include clothes, jewelry, edibles and toys.

Products Tie-ins are an old plot line for the 68-year-old superhero.

A “Superman Krypto Ray Gun” from 1940 is available on eBay for $900; an action figure from 1977 is priced at $150. Today’s products are available in all price ranges, from simple action figures (there’s even a Superman Barbie doll) to high-end collectible statues and a remote-controlled flying Superman.

“This is definitely the big movie toy release this summer,” said Justin Aclin, senior editor at ToyFare magazine. “There’s really a broad range of stuff from kids to collectors. There’s a lot of product out there.” Read more »

Sporting little more than a small concrete launch pad and a cluster of portable buildings, New Mexico’s spaceport is a far cry from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center — a 144,000-acre city of buildings, launch pads and runways with its own ZIP code.

But spaceport backers are thinking big…really big.

State officials today, while attending a major European aerospace show, plan to announce a sweeping new name that seeks to capitalize on New Mexico’s status as home to the country’s first hub for commercial space flight and tourism. Read more »

Jul. 13 –IT applications provider Softwin will invest over 100 million dollars by 2010 for international expansion of the BitDefender brand, by opening branches on external markets and development of the distribution network. “This year we are looking to strengthen our position on Western markets, where we have already had sales success and a good image, but also in the U.S., where we foresee sales of up to 10 million dollars for BitDefender products. Beginning next year, we will strongly direct our activity to Asia as well,” said Florin Talpes, Softwin president. The expansion of Softwin was decided based on performances registered on the anti-virus solution market: BitDefender has a two percent share of the world anti-virus market, with annual sales over 120 million dollars (94 million euros). The Softwin data security division, BitDefender, already has branches in Germany, Spain, the UK and the U.S., as well as local partners in 53 countries. Read more »

After pursuing a deal for months, Smithfield Foods Inc. — the world’s largest hog farming and slaughtering operation — announced Monday that it has signed a definitive agreement to buy the refrigerated meats division of ConAgra Foods Inc. for $575 million. The purchase includes packaged meats and turkey products sold under the Butterball, Armour, LunchMakers and several other brands, which Smithfield said produce $1.8 billion in combined annual sales.

“This acquisition furthers our strategy of growing the packaged meats side of our business with higher-value, further-processed and pre-cooked products,” said C. Larry Pope, Smithfield’s president and chief operation officer, in a statement. “These brands will allow us to capture sales and marketing opportunities.” Read more »

Will the day ever come when you can get a mortgage by going to googlemortgage.com or yahoomortgage.com? Maybe so, maybe not – but if you try those URL addresses, you’ll verify that nobody else is using them. Google and Yahoo retain plenty of lawyers to defend their brands in all markets.

Brand counts enormously on the Internet. “Google” has become a common verb coined to describe find information on the Web. If you don’t remember who starred in “The Deer Hunter,” for example, you just Google it. It takes a few seconds to verify that Robert DeNiro starred and Christopher Walken played the Russian roulette addict. Read more »