Business notebook

ID pact: Framingham's Identity Force has won a contract to provide identity theft solutions for the Veterans Affairs' general counsel office. The contract comes as the VA seeks to shore up security after personal data on personnel were stolen from a VA employee in May.

Purchase: MKS Instruments Inc., a Wilmington maker of monitoring and control technologies for semiconductor manufacturers, said it acquired Novx Corp., a provider of electrostatic charge monitoring technology. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Let's make a deal: Zoll Medical Corp. of Chelmsford has inked a deal with Armstrong Ambulance Service that will make Zoll defibrillators and other emergency medical equipment standard in Armstrong's fleet of 120 ambulances.

Will it, or won't it?: Home Depot Inc. said it will spend $350 million to lure more customers amid a cooling US housing market that is hurting business. But some analysts are skeptical the industry leader will make good. A 2003 effort to remodel aging stores never got fully ramped up, hurting the chain.

Nipped: Genetic Savings & Clone, a California biotech that sold cloned pets, informed customers last month that it will close at the end of the year because of little demand for cloned cats. The company said it was ``unable to develop the technology to the point that cloning pets is commercially viable."

Let 'em drive: United Parcel Service Inc. violated federal law by barring hearing-impaired employees from driving smaller versions of the company's trademark brown trucks, a federal appellate court said. UPS is considering an appeal.

Wal-Bank: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. pressed its application to open a bank in Utah for processing credit card transactions, telling the FDIC it would ``pose no unusual risks or problems" to the financial system.

Patent suit: Chip designer Transmeta Corp. sued Intel Corp., claiming the chip maker infringed on 10 of its patents. The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Delaware, alleges that several of Intel's products infringed on Transmeta patents covering computer architecture.

(Globe wire services)