Nike Inc

Nike Inc. said it would resume soccer-ball production in Pakistan after reaching an agreement with a vendor that was "committed to setting new standards for workers' rights." Silver Star Group must have full-time workers who are paid hourly wages and are eligible for healthcare and other benefits, Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike said. Nike said it halted production in Pakistan in November after its previous vendor, Saga Sports, violated company policy.

Oakley Inc. sued Nike Inc., claiming it infringed a patent used in Oakley's X Metal line of sunglasses. In a suit filed in federal court in Los Angeles, Oakley claims Nike has been using Oakley's decentered noncorrective lens technology, which provides minimal prismatic distortion, in its line. The suit seeks unspecified damages and a court order barring Nike from producing and marketing the sunglasses. Representatives of Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike were not immediately available for comment.

Nike Inc. and Foot Locker Inc. said they would open as many as 50 House of Hoops stores in the U.S. in the next three years as they seek to boost flagging sales of basketball shoes. Most of the stores will be converted Foot Locker locations, the companies said. Stores are planned in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Houston and New York. New York-based Foot Locker and Beaverton, Ore.

Nike Inc., the world's largest athletic-shoe maker, said fiscal fourth-quarter profit rose 28% as the firm cut inventory and sold more products, including basketball shoes, at full price. Net income climbed to $208.4 million, or 77 cents a share. Sales rose 8% to $2.68 billion. Shares of Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike rose $2.34, or 4.8%, to $51.42 on the NYSE. Results were released after the close of regular U.S. trading.

Teen-age girls paid 20 cents an hour to make $180 Nike sneakers are worked to exhaustion and fondled by their supervisors at Vietnam factories, a labor activist said. "Supervisors humiliate women, force them to kneel, to stand in the hot sun, treating them like recruits in boot camp," said Thuyen Nguyen, founder of Vietnam Labor Watch. Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike Inc. said it suspended one plant manager for forcing women to run laps.

Nike Inc.' two new television advertising campaigns include its first featuring basketball superstar Michael Jordan since his retirement, a company spokesman said. Most of the spots will air for the first time today, although the ad featuring Jordan is still in production and will not be seen for about two weeks, company spokesman Keith Peters said.

Nike Inc. said its fiscal first-quarter profit fell from a year earlier, when it benefited from a one-time tax gain. Excluding that item, profit rose in the quarter on sales growth around the globe. The Beaverton, Ore., company said its net income in the quarter that ended Aug. 31 fell to $510.5 million, or $1.03 a share, from $569.7 million, or $1.12, a year earlier. Last year's first-quarter profit included a special item that increased earnings per share by 20 cents. Without it, net income would have grown 10%. Revenue jumped 17% to $5.43 billion.

Shoe manufacturer Nike Inc. agreed Monday to remove a billboard message in South-Central Los Angeles near USC that a national Islamic organization contended was offensive to Muslims. The billboard features a photograph of former Los Angeles Clippers basketball player John Williams with copy that reads ". . . and they call him Allah." Williams, who starred at Crenshaw High School, picked up the nickname as a youth, a Nike spokesman said.

Nike Inc. is offering college activists a different kind of spring break, one that would take them on an inspection tour of the sports shoe and apparel company's factories around the world. Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike is trying to improve the perception of working conditions at its contract factories. Many of the company's harshest critics have been students, who contend the factories are dangerous sweatshops that hire underage workers and pay too little.