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Lamborghini could have made a four door sedan instead of an SUV, but that wouldn’t have been cool enough, said the Italian automaker’s chief executive in a telephone interview from Beijing, where the Urus SUV concept vehicle was being unveiled.

Sedans are "less emotional" than SUV’s, Stephan Winkelmann said and, therefore not as good a fit for the maker of extreme performance vehicles. "What we want to build is a real Lamborghini in any market segment we enter," he said.

Still, Lamborghini also wants to create a vehicle that can be used for more than just occasional high-speed drives.

"Today, we are not building cars which are meant to driven on a daily basis from ‘point a’ to ‘point b,’" Winkelmann said, "and this car is exactly that."

Lamborghini’s current line-up consists of two models, the V-12 powered Aventador, available at prices starting at about $375,000, and the V-10 powered Gallardo, which starts at about $180,000 and is available in numerous hard-top and convertible variations.

Gallery: Lamborghini Urus SUV

The Italian automaker has been considering something with broader appeal for years, Winkelmann said. In 2008, Lamborghini showed off a four-door sedan concept vehicle called the Estoque. But he said the global economic crisis put a stop to any further consideration of that vehicle.

Meanwhile, the SUV market has continued to expand, despite higher gas prices, as more sizes and variations of the high-riding vehicles have come to market.

Today, SUVs range from the traditional large truck-based vehicles to very small, sporty models personal loan for poor credit. According to a recent analysis by Ford Motor Co. (, Fortune 500), one in three vehicles sold in the United States last year was some sort of SUV.

"Even outside the U.S., the segment is growing," Winkelmann said.

Should Lamborghini decide to make the Urus available for sale — something Winkelmann said hadn’t been decided yet — it would cost roughly the same as the Gallardo.

Cool cars from the N.Y. auto show

Producing a vehicle like the Urus is "over 95% feasible," Winkelmann said.

Much of the concept SUV is made from expensive, but very lightweight, carbon fiber, and instead of actual side mirrors, it has video cameras.

Currently, Lamborghini sells only about 2,000 cars but is prepared to produce as many of the 3,000 of the Urus SUV alone.

That would still leave the supercar maker selling just 5,000 vehicles a year, a number that wouldn’t endanger the brand’s valued exclusivity, Winkelmann said.

Lamborghini is part of Germany’s Volkswagen Group () which also owns Audi, Bentley and Bugatti. Bentley also unveiled an SUV concept vehicle at an auto show earlier this year.

The 600 horsepower Urus would primarily be intended for on-road use, said Winkelmann, where it would offer strong acceleration and cornering without, perhaps, the top speed of a Lamborghini sports car.

Off road, it would perform about as well as other high-performance luxury crossovers. In other words, it will be able to drive in the mud and on rocks but not all that well. 

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Some Asian airlines plan to change flight paths for several routes to avoid a rocket North Korea is expected to launch in the next week.

Philippine Airlines said Monday that a dozen of its flights from the United States, Japan and South Korea will fly safely away from the rocket’s possible path.

Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways are changing flight paths on routes connecting Tokyo to Manila, Jakarta and Singapore. Domestic flights will not be affected.

JAL has four flights a day on the expected rocket launch dates, and airline official Norio Higashimine said each flight will carry more fuel in case of an unexpected route change.

ANA is making similar route changes on five flights pay day loans.

North Korea says it is launching a satellite between Thursday and April 16, depending on weather. It says the satellite will observe crops and natural resources and denies suspicions that the launch is intended to test long-range missile technology.

Philippine officials have declared a no-fly zone and urged ships and fishing boats to avoid northeastern territorial waters where rocket debris may fall.

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Apple is on the verge of doing what few others have: change the English language.

When you have a boo-boo, you reach for a Band-Aid not a bandage. When you need to blow your nose, you ask for Kleenex not tissue. If you decide to look up something online, you Google instead of search for it. And if you want to buy a tablet computer, there’s a good chance there’s only one name you’ll remember.

“For the vast majority, the idea of a tablet is really captured by the idea of an iPad,’” says Josh Davis, a manager at Abt Electronics in Chicago. “They gave birth to the whole category and brought it to life.”

Companies trip over themselves to make their brands household names. But only a few brands become so engrained in the lexicon that they’re synonymous with the products themselves. This so-called “genericization” can be both good and bad for companies like Apple, which must balance their desire for brand recognition with their disdain for brand deterioration.

It’s one of the biggest contradictions in business. Companies spend millions to create a brand. Then, they spend millions more on marketing that can have the unintended consequence of making those names so popular that they become shorthand for similar products. It’s like if people start calling station wagons Bentleys. It can diminish a brand’s reputation.

“There’s tension between legal departments concerned about `genericide’ and marketing departments concerned about sales,” says Michael Atkins, a Seattle trademark attorney. “Marketing people want the brand name as widespread as possible and trademark lawyers worry … the brand will lose all trademark significance.”

It doesn’t happen often. In fact, it’s estimated that fewer than 5 percent of U.S. brand names become generic. Those that do typically are inventions or products that improve on what’s already on the market. The brand names then become so popular that they eclipse rivals in sales, market share and in the minds’ of consumers. And then they spread through the English language like the common cold in a small office.

“There’s nothing that can be done to prevent it once it starts happening,” says Michael Weiss, professor of linguistics at Cornell University. “There’s no controlling the growth of language.”

FIGHTING BACK

A company’s biggest fear is that their brand name becomes so commonly used to describe a product that a judge rules that it’s too “generic” to be a trademark. That means that any product _ even inferior ones _ can legally use the name. A brand usually is declared legally generic after a company sues another firm for using its name and the case goes to a federal court.

Drug maker Bayer lost trademarks for the names “aspirin” and “heroin” this way in the 1920s. So did B.F. Goodrich, which sued to protect its trademark of “zipper” in the 1920s after the name joined the world of common nouns. Similar cases deemed “escalator” generic in 1950, “thermos” generic in 1963 and “yo-yo” generic in 1965.

It’s difficult to quantify how much revenue a company loses when its brand is deemed generic. But companies worry that it breeds confusion among consumers.

To prevent their names from becoming generic, some companies use marketing to reinforce their trademarks. For instance, after its Band-Aid brand name started becoming commonly used to refer to adhesive bandages, Johnson & Johnsons changed its jingle in ads from “I’m Stuck on Band-Aid” to “I’m Stuck on Band-Aid brand.”

Kleenex uses “Kleenex brand” instead of just “Kleenex” on its packaging and in marketing and places ads to remind people Kleenex is trademarked. And the company contacts some people who use Kleenex generically to refer to tissue in order to correct them.

“We’ve worked very hard to keep `Kleenex’ from going the route of `escalator’ and `aspirin,’” says Vicki Margolis, vice president and chief counsel, intellectual property and global marketing for Kimberly-Clark, which owns Kleenex. “If we lose the trademark, people can use it with sandpaper and call that a Kleenex.”

Xerox is taking a similar route. The company, which introduced the first automatic copier in the U cash advance.S. in 1959, has been on a public crusade for decades to keep its brand from becoming generic. The machine’s success has led people to start using “Xerox” to refer to any copying machine, copies made from one and the act of copying.

“In the mid- to late-1970s, we ran dangerously close to Xerox becoming `genericized,’” says Barbara Basney, vice president of global advertising. “That prompted a lot of proactive action to protect our trademark.”

Xerox has spent millions taking out ads aimed at educating so-called “influencers” like lawyers, journalists and entertainers about its brand name. A 2003 ad said: “When you use `Xerox’ the way you use `aspirin,’ we get a headache.” More recently, a 2007 ad read: “If you use “Xerox” the way you use “zipper,” our trademark could be left wide open.”

While people still use “Xerox” generically _ the Merriam-Webster dictionary lists the word as both a lower-case verb with the definition “to copy on a xerographic copier” and a trademarked noun _ the brand says its campaign has been a success.

Xerox is still popular: It’s ranked the 57th most valuable global brand, worth $6.4 billion, according to brand consultancy Interbrand. And perhaps most importantly, Xerox hasn’t lost its trademark.

TAKING IT IN STRIDE

Sometimes companies embrace when their brands become common nouns.

Perhaps the best example of this is Google, a company created in 1998 when Alta Vista and Yahoo.com were the top online search engines. Google, which created a formula that returned more accurate results than its competitors, became so popular that people began saying “Google” to refer to a Web search, in general. Experts say Google has benefited from its name becoming a part of the lexicon.

“You don’t say `Why don’t I Google it’ and go to Yahoo or Bing,” says Jessica Litman, professor of copyright law at the University of Michigan Law School, referring to other search engines.

Apple also has gotten a boost from its brand names becoming synonymous with products. The iPod, which was the first digital music player when it came out in 2001, is still the name people use for “digital music player” or “MP3 player.” And it appears Apple’s iPad is headed down the same path.

For consumers like Mary Schmidt, 58, the “iPad” is generic for “tablet.” Schmidt, a Baltimore marketing executive, owns an iPad and doesn’t know the names of any other tablets.

“When I think of tablets, I think of an iPad,” she says. “I think it’s going to be the generic name. They were first.”

It remains to be seen if the iPad will maintain its name domination in the tablet market. Apple declined to comment for this article.

For now, Apple Inc. has a majority of the tablet category, which includes Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy Tablet. The iPad accounted for about 73 percent of the estimated 63.6 million tablets sold globally last year, according to research firm Gartner.

Apple’s market share is likely to decline as more rivals roll out tablets. But experts say that won’t necessarily diminish iPad’s name recognition.

“Apple is actually pretty good at this,” says Litman, the law school professor. “It’s able to skate pretty close to the generics line while making it very clear the name is a trademark of the Apple version of this general category.”

When the iPad debuted in 2010, some people offered up “Apple Tablet” or the “iTab” as better names. Others even suggested that the name sounded more like a feminine hygiene product than a tablet: “Get ready for Maxi pad jokes and lots of `em!” wrote tech site Gizmo at the time.

Two years later, those complaints are all but forgotten.

“At the end of the day, the product was so successful that even if it wasn’t the `quote unquote’ best name, it made the name synonymous with the category,” says Allen Adamson, managing director at branding firm Landor.

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U.S. service companies expanded at a healthy pace last month and stepped up hiring, though growth slowed a bit from the previous month.

The Institute for Supply Management, a private trade group, said Wednesday that its index of non-manufacturing activity dropped to 56 in March, down from February’s 57.3. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion.

The trade group of purchasing managers surveys roughly 90 percent of U.S. companies in all sectors outside of manufacturing. That includes retail, construction, financial services, health care, and hotels.

A measure of employment rose as more companies said they plan to add workers.

Separately, payroll processor ADP said the economy added 209,000 private-sector jobs in March. The ADP survey does not include government jobs.

Both reports are encouraging signs ahead of the government’s report on March job growth, which will be released Friday. Economists are predicting that employers added 210,000 jobs, which would be the fourth straight month of strong hiring.

More jobs have helped service companies grow. As hiring picks up, Americans are more willing to spend. Consumer spending jumped in February by the most in seven months, the government said last week payday loans no teletrack.

Department stores, electronics chains and other merchants are seeing more business. Retail sales increased in February by the most in four months. Department store sales rose in February by the most since November 2010.

Big job gains at service firms are necessary to reduce the unemployment rate. The service sector includes low-paying positions in retail and restaurants. But it also has higher-paying jobs in professions such as information technology, accounting and financial services.

The job gains have come as growth has picked up. The economy expanded at an annual rate of 3 percent in the final three months of last year.

Still, the hiring gains have not resulted in bigger paychecks for most people. Income grew just 0.2 percent last month, matching January’s weak increase. And when taking inflation into account, income after taxes fell for a second straight month.

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U.S. stocks were poised to open higher Monday as Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments on the job market gave investors reason to believe interest rates will stay low.

The Dow Jones industrial average (), S&P 500 () and Nasdaq () futures were higher. Stock futures indicate the possible direction of the markets when they open at 9:30 a.m. ET.

In an address Monday to the National Association for Business Economics, the Federal Reserve chairman said that while recent jobs data have been positive, "the better jobs numbers seem somewhat out of sync with the overall pace of economic expansion."

Futures edged higher during Bernanke’s speech, as his comments suggest the central bank is prepared to keep interest rates low for an extended period of time.

A report on pending home sales is due later Monday, following a number of reports on the housing market last week, which provided a mixed picture of the sector. The housing market remains a source of worry despite other indicators suggesting the broader economy is improving.

U.S. stocks closed slightly higher Friday after moving unevenly throughout the day, but the Dow and S&P 500 both closed the week down. Only the Nasdaq was able to claw out a weekly gain.

Investors’ enthusiasm was dampened by a series of dour economic reports out of China that underscored concerns about slower growth in the world’s second largest economy.

Despite the off week, the S&P 500 is up 11% for the year while the Dow is 7% higher. The Nasdaq is up nearly 18% in 2012.

World markets: European stocks were mixed in afternoon trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 () shed 0.2%, the DAX () in Germany gained 0.6% and France’s CAC 40 () was flat.

Asian markets ended little changed. The Shanghai Composite () and Japan’s Nikkei () added 0.1%, while the Hang Seng () in Hong Kong was flat.

Economy: Pending home sales for February are expected to have increased by 0.5%, after ticking up by 2% in January, according to a survey of analysts by Briefing.com.

Companies: Shares of Lions Gate Entertainment () were up more than 9% in premarket trading after a gangbusters opening weekend for the studio’s post-apocalyptic teen death match film "The Hunger Games."

BATS Global Markets, an equities and options exchange operator, started trading Friday at $15.25, after pricing its initial public offering at $16, the low end of its estimated range.

BATS: Well, this is awkward

Trading was halted in late morning, however, as the exchange said it was investigating system issues, and by day’s end, BATS announced it had withdrawn its IPO.

A BATS spokeswoman said Friday that the company had no further plans to go public at present.

Currencies and commodities: The dollar strengthened against the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen.

Oil for May delivery slipped 11 cents to $106.76 a barrel.

Gold futures for April delivery fell $2.30 to $1,660.10 an ounce.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury dropped, pushing the yield up to 2.28% from 2.24% late Friday.  

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The Federal Reserve is pushing back against some banks

Netflix’s key contract with Starz expired on Tuesday, causing a massive hit to its instant streaming catalog of movies and TV shows.

Pay-cable network Starz struck a four-year licensing deal with Netflix back in 2008. Netflix had been trying for months to negotiate a new contract, but talks fell apart back in September.

The Starz contract officially expired on February 28, so titles such as "Toy Story 3," "Scarface" and "Young Frankenstein" are no longer available on streaming from Netflix.

A significant amount of Starz’ content catalog is Disney (, Fortune 500) films, though it includes licensed titles from several other studios. Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey would not confirm how many titles were pulled.

Swasey implied that Netflix will be able to get some of those titles back by striking deals with other cable networks, saying that "only about 15 Disney titles are really non-replaceable."

"There’s always an ebb and flow of title availability, and there always will be," Swasey said. "There’s never a shortage of stuff. You’ll see more titles soon."

As of January, Starz content accounted for 2% of viewing time, Swasey said.

Still, the loss highlights two major problems for Netflix (): a streaming catalog that some customers complain is lackluster, and the increasing costs of content.

Before the talks fell apart last year, Netflix called the Starz contract "one of our most important deals" — because it was one of the few that gave Netflix streaming access to relatively recent movies.

Because Starz has licensing deals with several major movie studios, Netflix was able to piggyback on the arrangements and boost its catalog of recent releases.

Starz said it ended the contract talks because of "our strategy to protect the premium nature of our brand by preserving the appropriate pricing and packaging of our exclusive and highly valuable content."

Meaning: Starz wants more money. Netflix was able to score cheap contracts years ago, when streaming video hadn’t fully broken into the mainstream. Now that streaming video is so popular, providers are upping the price tag for their content.

Those increasing costs have set off a vicious cycle. In order to offset content charges, Netflix began charging separate prices for its DVDs-by-mail and streaming video plans in September 2011.

That raised the cheapest-possible bill for customers who want both services from $10 to $16 a month. Outraged customers left thousands of comments on Netflix’s blog, and in the third quarter of 2011, the company’s U.S. subscriber base fell for the first time in years.

Millions of customers stayed on, but some have complained of a too-small streaming catalog. Outright loss of content, like the Starz expiration, leaves angry customers asking why they’re paying more for less.

Netflix has been striking other deals to beef up its catalog. Last week, the company announced a multi-year agreement to get Academy Award-winning titles "The Artist" and "Undefeated," as well as other movies from The Weinstein Company.

Netflix is making an even bigger bet on TV, including studio-like moves. Last year Netflix licensed its first original series, "House of Cards," which stars Kevin Spacey and is due out in late 2012. In November, Netflix announced it would release a new season of the cancelled "Arrested Development" in 2013.

Meanwhile, studios now have a bargaining chip in the form of Netflix’s competitors. Beyond direct rivals like Hulu and kiosk service Redbox (owned by Coinstar ()), big tech players like Amazon (, Fortune 500) and Google (, Fortune 500) are jumping into the streaming game.  

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Oil prices hit a new nine-month high Thursday as the dollar fell and gas pump prices climbed closer to $4 a gallon across much of the country.

Benchmark crude prices rose by $1.55 to end the day at $107.83 per barrel in New York. That’s the highest price since May 4 of last year. Brent crude increased by 72 cents to finish at $123.62 per barrel in London.

The rise in oil prices has helped push retail gasoline prices to record levels for this time of year. Benchmark crude has increased 9 percent so far in 2012, and gas pump prices are up about 5 percent.

Retail gasoline prices added another 3 cents Thursday for a national average of $3.61 a gallon, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. A gallon of regular has already topped $4 in California, Hawaii and Alaska. Gasoline is nearly $3.90 per gallon in New York and Connecticut. Analysts think we could see a national average of $4.25 a gallon by April.

The ongoing tension between western nations and Iran is continuing to drive oil prices higher.

Iran, the world’s third-biggest oil exporter, already has cut off shipments to Britain and France, and it may halt exports to other European countries. Iran also has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway in the Persian Gulf through which one-sixth of the world’s seaborne exports flow every day.

Experts doubt Iran will try to dramatically cut shipments, given its dependence on oil sales. About half of the country’s revenue comes from crude. But many investors are snapping up oil contracts in case tensions escalate further.

“The Iranian influence remains as a major driver” in oil prices, independent analyst and trader Jim Ritterbusch said.

In addition to an oil embargo set to start this summer, European Union leaders said Thursday that the EU is preparing regulations that will put further financial pressure on Iran by keeping its banks from using a major financial clearinghouse no fax cash advances.

Oil prices got an extra boost Thursday afternoon as the dollar fell against the euro and other major currencies. Oil is priced in U.S. currency and tends to rise as the dollar falls and makes crude cheaper for investors with foreign money.

Oil prices are higher even though U.S. petroleum demand has been tanking compared to a year ago. The Energy Information Administration said Thursday that demand has dropped 6.7 percent for oil, and 6.1 percent for gasoline. The U.S. remains the world’s biggest oil consumer, but government data show that demand is growing the most overseas in developing countries like China.

Meanwhile, the price of natural gas fell after the government said supplies remain significantly higher than average for this time of year. Natural gas futures on Thursday fell by 2 cents to finish at $2.62 per 1,000 cubic feet in New York.

A boom in North American shale drilling has filled underground storage facilities across the country. The Energy Information Administration says supplies are more than 40 percent higher than the five-year average.

Major natural gas producers recently cut back on production, as prices linger around a 10-year low. But analysts say they’re not doing enough to reduce the glut.

“There’s still an avalanche of gas available right now,” said Gene McGillian, a broker and oil analyst at Tradition Energy.

In other energy trading, heating oil rose 2 cents to finish at $3.29 per gallon and gasoline futures rose by 3 cents to end at $3.11 per gallon.

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U.S. stock futures are slightly higher on hopes that Greece would soon get its crucial second bailout and following another batch of upbeat U.S. economic news.

Investors are growing more optimistic that European finance ministers will sign off on the Greek bailout and a bond swap agreement with Greece’s private creditors on Monday.

Dow Jones industrial futures are up 33 points to 12,903. The broader S&P 500 futures are up 2 points at 1,357. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 2 points at 2,595 instant credit reports.

Sentiment in the markets has been further buoyed by more positive U.S. economic data, particularly in the jobs market. Figures released Thursday showed jobless claims fell last week by 13,000 to 348,000, the lowest level since February 2008.

Most European and Asian markets rose Friday.

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