General Patent Corporation International said today it has licensed a cell-phone patent to LG Electronics Inc., the South Korean maker of consumer electronics, including cell phones.

The license gives LG non-exclusive rights to technology to improve communications between cell-phone transmitters and handsets, as well as devices, such as Bluetooth wireless headsets.

The patent is held by a sister company of General Patent, Digital Technology Licensing LLC, both of which are based in Montebello Park in Suffern.

Jarden Corp. said today it expects to meet or exceed earnings estimates for the first quarter.

Analysts predict the Rye-based company will earn 20 cents a share for the quarter that ended March 31, based on a consensus estimate of five analysts provided by Zacks Investment Research.

The maker of appliances and other consumer products reported net sales for the quarter of $1.2 billion, an increase of about 47 percent above the same period last year.

Jarden said its best-performing unit was its outdoor-products unit, K2, which it acquired last year. Other business segments saw a decline, it said.

Jarden products include familiar household names such as Mr. Coffee and Sunbeam appliances, Ball canning goods, and Bicycle and Bee brands of playing cards.

Jarden is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings May 8.

Shares of the company fell 65 cents to $20.66 each in trading today.

Hudson Valley Bank has opened a new branch on Manhattan’s West Side, it said today.

The office, at 112 W. 34th St., near Herald Square and Penn Station, joins three others the Yonkers-based financial-services company operates in Manhattan.

Hudson Valley Bank is a unit of Hudson Valley Holding Corp., which also owns NYNB Bank.

The average price of regular unleaded gasoline in Westchester County rose 4 cents in two weeks to $3.517, the county’s Department of Consumer Protection said.

That’s 55 cents higher than a year ago, the department said.

The latest survey is the second consecutive one that showed the average price at an all-time high, said John Gaccione, a spokesman for the department.

“Prior to that, they were below Katrina levels,” he said, referring to the price spike that took place after the hurricane caused havoc with oil production in the Gulf Coast area in 2005.

The lowest price for regular unleaded in the latest survey was $3.359 at a Power station on North Broadway in Sleepy Hollow. The highest was $3.799 at a full-service Citgo station on Lake Street in White Plains.

It also appears that Westchester could be on the verge of its first $4 gas, Gaccione said. A Gulf station on Wolfs Lane in Pelham was charging $3.999 for self-service premium unleaded, while an Exxon station on the same street was charging $3.999 for full-service premium unleaded, according to the survey results published on the department’s Web site.

Financial-planner Beth Blecker, who hosts a personal-finance program on Internet-based RocklandWorldRadio.com, hopes to expand the reach of her program to deaf and hearing impaired consumers.

Beginning Tuesday, Blecker’s “Taking Control” program, which airs at noon, will utilize a sign-language interpreter to communicate with viewers who can’t hear or have difficulty hearing.

“It’s our goal to provide vital financial information for members of a wide-ranging audience,” said Blecker, chief executive at Nanuet-based Eastern Planning Inc.

For those who aren’t able to listen at the time of broacast, Tuesday’s “Taking Control” program, like all shows broadcast on RocklandWorldRadio.com, will be archived for future listening or viewing.

The Westchester County Department of Consumer Protection recovered a record $975,000 in restitution for consumers in 2007, up 36 percent, as the department focused on complaints involving home contractors.

Complaints about home improvement and repair work topped the department’s “Top 10� list of more than 1,300 consumer grievances for 2007. Contracting complaints logged in at 362, slightly less than the 370 complaints logged for 2006, although the department was able to recover more money on contracting complaints last year, spokesman John Gaccione said today.

“We did shift some resources and put more emphasis on it,� he said.

Last year Consumer Protection ran an undercover sting operation for the first time, with county police posing as homeowners and contacting unlicensed contractors to seek bids for repair work. The department recently seized a vehicle from an unlicensed contractor, using a new county law allowing for the impounding of such equipment.

In descending order, the other nine subjects of consumer complaints were automobile dealers, furniture stores, food stores (pricing, scanner accuracy, outdated merchandise, rain checks), department stores, professional services, utilities, manufacturers (consumer products), wireless phones, and appliance stores.

To file a consumer complaint, call (914) 995-2155 or log onto the department’s Web site, www.westchestergov.com/consumer.

The New York Sports Club will open at Trump Plaza in New Rochelle in March, the luxury high-rise announced, and complimentary one-year memberships are being offered to buyers of units.

Seventy percent of the 194 units at Trump Plaza have been sold since its opening last fall, and more than 125 residents have moved in.

The free NYSC membership program, valued at $1,000, runs through March 30.

Residences at the 40-story Trump Plaza are priced from the mid-$500,000s to $1.7 million.

EpiCept Corp., a developer of topical drugs, reported today that a drug it is developing to alleviate pain suffered by diabetes patients performed well enough in tests for the Eastview-based company to call for further clinical trials.

EpiCept said patients who used its NP-1 cream instead of a placebo in a Phase II trial were more likely to experience relief from nerve damage caused by diabetes, known as diabetic peripheral neuropathy.

Sixty percent of patients taking the drug saw at least a 30 percent reduction in pain, EpiCept said, compared to 48 percent of placebo patients who experienced the same reduction in pain.

The encouraging outcome means NP-1 is likely to move to Phase III trials.

EpiCept is also testing NP-1 in two other trials, a late-stage study to see how the cream helps in relieving pain in patients who have suffered nerve damage after chemotherapy and a mid-stage trial to see how the drug performs on patients who suffer residual pain from shingles.

Rockland Community College in Ramapo plays host to the 2008 Suburban Home Show, which starts Friday at 3 p.m. and runs through 6 p.m. Sunday.

The home show incorporates 350 exhibitors, housed in the college’s 90,000-square-foot Fieldhouse, showcasing products and services geared to homeowners.

Categories include remodeling and home improvement, kitchens, baths, tools and hardware, windows, doors and many more.

The event also features personalities from broadcast- and cable-television shows This Old House and While You Were Out.

Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for seniors. Children under 16 are free.

For more information go to www.showoffice.com or call 800-248-7469.

Verizon is expanding its FiOS TV service to Briarcliff Manor, Sleepy Hollow and the town and village of Ossining. Consumers in those towns can now place orders for the service, which is available in more than 145 New York communities. Consumers can log onto www.verizon.com/ny/savebig to see if FiOS is available in their area.

Barr Laboratories Inc., the Pomona-based generic-drug unit of Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., has received regulatory approval to begin selling a generic version of Kytril, a brand-name drug used to treat nausea and vomiting associated with cancer treatments.

Barr said it received final approval from the Food and Drug Administration following the expiration of the drug’s patent Friday.

Kytril, manufactured by Roche Laboratories Inc., had annual sales of $88 million ending October, based on industry data.

Barr plans to launch its generic product shortly, it said.

In response to recalls of foreign-made products and the decline of U.S. manufacturing, a trio of Rocklanders have established a Web site called America’s Business to Consumers (www.usab2c.com) that features only U.S.-made goods.

Offerings run the gamut from apparel to Zippo lighters — “from A to Z,� according to one of the site’s founders, George Hanos, who retired from drug-maker Pfizer Inc. in 2004.

Hanos, 54, along with two sisters-in-law, Denetra Anayannis of Pomona and Nanuet-resident Sophia Anayannis, who edits a community blog and chat room on the site, wanted to make a difference.

“We asked ourselves, ‘What could one person really do … to stop the flow of knowledgeable jobs overseas?’â€? Hanos said.

Many of the manufacturers featured on the site are mom-and-pop operations, he said.

USAB2C.com acts as a portal Web site, having products shipped directly to consumers from the manufacturers.

Items include wooden toys from Maple Landmark Inc., based in Middlebury, Vt., and Holgate Toys of Bradford, Pa., which have none of lead-paint concerns of toys made in China, Hanos said.

The site has been up-and-running since the beginning of November in anticipation of the Christmas selling season, he said.

How’d sales do?

“For a start-up,� Hanos said. “it worked out pretty good.�

A nutritional supplement marketed by Purchase-based Nutrition 21 Inc. has been shown to improve brain function in older people experiencing early memory decline, the company reported this week.

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati found that daily supplementation with 1,000 micrograms of Nutrition 21’s chromium picolinate helped improve insulin sensitivity, allowing glucose, the brain’s main “fuel,� to be process more efficiently, Nutrition 21 said.

“Impaired glucose metabolism and insulin resistance have been linked to age-related cognitive decline, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease,� said Robert Krikorian, lead investigator of the study. “These findings suggest that improving glucose metabolism with chromium picolinate supplementation may enhance cognition.�

The study used a Nutrition 21 supplement specifically formulated to improve brain health, known as Core4Life Advanced Memory Formula.

In addition to chromium picolinate, the supplement includes two other ingredients — phosphatidylserine and DHA — that, Nutrition 21 said, are known to play a role in improve memory and maintain brain health.

Consumers who buy their prescription drugs online may find out the hard way that some Web sites aren’t legitimate retailers.

Some have reported problems such as credit-card charges and overcharges for which no products were received; receipt of wrong or fake drugs; no order confirmations; and other problems.

So called “rogue pharmacies� are the scourge of the Internet, says PharmacyChecker.com, a White Plains-based company that provides a verification service for online pharmacies.

This week the company published a list of 36 rogue pharmacies that showed no evidence of being licensed.

“Consumers should be alerted that using the Web sites on the list may put their health and money at risk,� said Dr. Tod Cooperman, president of PharmacyChecker.com and its sister site, ConsumerLab.com.

Still, he said, “(Consumers) can take some simple steps to avoid rogue pharmacies and find legitimate pharmacies that offer authentic medication at significant savings.”

The 36 rogue pharmacies on the list, which the company said will be updated continually, can be found at PharmacyChecker.com (www.pharmacychecker.com).

ConsumerLab.com, a White Plains-based tester of nutritional supplements, reports that its latest study of omega-3 and -6 fatty acid supplements derived from seed oils showed improvement from two previous reports.

The most recent test showed two of the 22 products tested were “slightly” low in one fatty acid, a better showing than studies in 2002 and 2005 in which as many as six products failed testing.

The study also noted that none of the products test this time around showed evidence of spoilage, which had been found in the past, ConsumerLab.com said.

Among those products that failed testing this year, LifeWise Naturals Evening Primrose Oil 1300 mg, a softgel, contained only 80 percent of its labeled amount of oleic acid — a monounsaturated omega-9 fatty acid. The other was Udo’s Choice Udo’s 3-6-9 Oil Blend that contained only 84 percent of its labeled amount of omega-9 fatty acids.

Both products, however, contained the claimed amounts of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, ConsumerLab.com said.

Consumers take omega-3 and -6 fatty acids for perceived health benefits. For omega-3, those include improved heart health, while omega-6 is believed to help in treatment of ailments involving pain and inflammation, including rheumatoid arthritis and cyclic mastalgia — breast pain associated with the menstrual cycle.

The report includes results of two supplements for pets, as well. Pet owners use omega-3 and-6 fatty acids for skin and coat maintenance.

ConsumerLab.com’s latest report on omega-3 and -6 supplements is available online to subscribers of the Web site (www.consumerlab.com).