Our research in CMP slurries and pads addresses a breadth of complex and interrelated performance criteria that relate to the functional performance of the chip, our customers’ manufacturing yields, and their overall cost of ownership. We design slurries and pads that are capable of polishing one or more materials of differing hardness, sometimes at the same time, that make up the semiconductor circuitry. Additionally, our products must achieve the desired surface conditions at high polishing rates, high processing yields and low consumables costs in order to provide acceptable system economics for our customers. As dimensions become smaller and as materials and designs increase in complexity, these challenges require significant investments in R&D. We also commit internal R&D resources to our ESF business. We believe that application areas we are currently developing, such as precision optics and electronic substrates, represent natural adjacencies to our core CMP business and technology. Products under development include products used to polish silicon and silicon-carbide wafers to improve the surface quality of these wafers and reduce the customers’ total cost of ownership. We believe that a competitive advantage can be gained through technology, and that our investments in R&D provide us with polishing and metrology capabilities that support the most advanced and challenging customer technology requirements on a global basis. In fiscal 2012, 2011 and 2010, we incurred approximately $58.6 million, $58.0 million and $51.8 million, respectively, in R&D expenses. We believe our Six Sigma initiatives in our R&D efforts allow us to conduct more research at a lower cost. Investments in property, plant and equipment to support our R&D efforts are capitalized and depreciated over their useful lives. Our global R&D team includes experts from the semiconductor industry and scientists from key disciplines required for the development of high-performance CMP consumable products. We operate an R&D facility in Aurora, Illinois, that features a Class 1 clean room and advanced equipment for product development, including 300mm polishing and metrology capabilities; a technology center in Japan, which includes a Class 1 clean room with 300mm polishing, metrology and slurry development capabilities; an R&D facility in Taiwan within our Epoch subsidiary that includes a clean room with 200mm polishing capability; a new R&D facility in South Korea, that was opened in August 2011, that provides slurry formulation capability; an R&D laboratory in Singapore that provides polishing, metrology and slurry development capabilities for the data storage industry; and a research facility in Rochester, New York to support our QED business. All of these facilities underscore our commitment both to continuing to invest in our technology infrastructure to maintain our technology leadership, and to becoming even more responsive to the needs of our customers. Raw Materials Supply Metal oxides, such as silica and alumina, are significant raw materials we use in many of our CMP slurries. In the interest of supply assurance, our strategy is to secure multiple sources of raw materials and qualify and monitor those sources as necessary to ensure our supply of raw materials remains uninterrupted. Also, we have entered into multi-year supply agreements with a number of suppliers for the purchase of raw materials in the interest of supply assurance and to control costs. For additional information regarding these agreements, refer to “Tabular Disclosure of Contractual Obligations”, included in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”, in Item 7 of Part II of this Form 10-K. Intellectual Property Our intellectual property is important to our success and ability to compete. As of October 31, 2012, we had 964 active worldwide patents, of which 226 are U.S. patents, and 581 pending worldwide patent applications, of which 69 are in the U.S. Many of these patents are important to our continued development of new and innovative products for CMP and related processes, as well as for new businesses. Our patents have a range of duration and we do not expect to lose any material patent through expiration within the next four years. We attempt to protect our intellectual property rights through a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws, as well as employee and third party nondisclosure and assignment agreements. We vigorously and proactively pursue parties that attempt to compromise our investments in research and development by infringing our intellectual property. For example, in 2011, we concluded litigation in the United States against a competitor in which the validity of certain of our CMP slurry patents for tungsten CMP was upheld, although the specific competitive products at issue were found to not infringe the claims at issue. With respect to the same patents, we have been successful before the United States International Trade Commission in prohibiting the importation and sale within the United States of infringing products by another competitor. Most of our intellectual property has been developed internally, but we also may acquire intellectual property from others to enhance our intellectual property portfolio. These enhancements may be via licenses or assignments or we may acquire certain proprietary technology and intellectual property when we make acquisitions. We believe these technology rights continue to enhance our competitive advantage by 10