Upbeat earnings lifted the markets to a modestly higher open with the Dow adding 5 points to 12,883 while Nasdaq gained 12 points to 2916.

On the upside

Rambus (Nasdaq: RMBS) settled patent infringement suits by licensing its integrated circuit patents to Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA).

Fourth quarter earnings soared for Buffalo Wild Wings (Nasdaq: BWLD) to surpass analyst expectations by a wide margin as revenue climbed.

Glu Mobile (Nasdaq: GLUU) reported a smaller than expected loss for the fourth quarter.

On the downside

Teekay Tankers (NYSE: TNK) priced its public offering of 15 million common shares at the discounted price of $4 per share.

Silicon Graphics International (Nasdaq: SGI) cited shrinking margins for falling to a greater than expected loss for the second quarter.

Sprint (NYSE: S) widened fourth quarter losses due to the higher costs of selling Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 5 to 2 on the NYSE and by more than 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks gained 4 point to 831.