Business notebook

Acquired: Eaton Vance Corp., the largest US manager of funds designed to minimize taxes, agreed to buy $442 million in assets from Voyageur Asset Management Inc. Terms weren't disclosed.

Fired: Pfizer fired vice president of marketing Peter Rost citing the government's decision not to participate in a whistle-blower suit he brought against the company. Rost charged in 2003 that Pharmacia, a Pfizer unit, marketed the human growth hormone Genotropin for unapproved uses and improperly sought reimbursement from federal health plans.

Retiring: StockerYale said operating chief Ricardo Diaz will retire Dec. 30. After retiring, he will be a consultant for the Salem, N.H., maker of parts and specialty optical fiber for the telecommunications, machine vision, and industrial inspection industries.

Bills due: Government officials said they selected March 2 to start distributing the redesigned, more colorful $10 bills, which will have shades of red, yellow, and orange added to the traditional green.

Ruling: BlackBerry maker Research In Motion moved forward in challenging one of the patents at issue in a major infringement case against it. The US Patent and Trademark Office issued a ''nonfinal action" rejecting all the claims supporting one of five key patents, according to the patent office's website. The patents being challenged by RIM are at the center of a legal battle with patent holding company NTP Inc. that could force RIM to settle or face a court-ordered shutdown of most US BlackBerry sales and service.

Big loss: Delta Air Lines said it lost $1.14 billion in the first six weeks of its bankruptcy case. The airline revealed the loss that amounted to $6.04 a share for the Sept. 15 to Oct. 31 period in a filing in US Bankruptcy Court in New York.

Plant in Israel: Chip maker Intel Corp. said it will build a $3.5 billion plant in Israel alongside an existing one. Israeli said the project will create more than 4,000 jobs.

(Globe wire services)