EchoStar Communications Corp infringed a TiVo Inc patent in building digital video recorders and must pay nearly $74 million in damages, a court that specializes in patent cases ruled on Thursday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in its decision that it partially affirmed a verdict from a federal district court in Texas.

That lower court had ruled that EchoStar's digital video recorders infringed what it called the "software" claims of a TiVo patent. But the appeals court reversed a portion of the lower court's decision which said the EchoStar devices also infringed on what it called "hardware" claims.

But that strategy may also falter when the Senate votes next week on the $193 billion economic stimulus bill that has been expanded over what already was approved by the House. Both President Bush and Senate GOP leaders have warned against adding to the House-passed bill.

But as it emerged this week from the Senate Finance Committee, among the items added was a string of energy tax credits aimed at helping people lower their heating and cooling costs and give a boost to wind and solar energy industries.

The efficiency measures — including tax credits for retrofitting homes with more energy efficient windows, insulation and furnaces — expired in December. The other tax breaks are set to die out at the end of this year. The economic package would extend all of the credits to the end of 2009.

Wind and solar industry lobbyists and energy efficiency advocates have pushed for the tax extensions, which have bipartisan support, but efforts to get them into the energy bill enacted just before Christmas failed because of an unrelated dispute over taxing large oil companies.

With lawmakers facing political pressure to respond to the threats of an economic recession, the stimulus package was seen as a way to prolong the energy tax breaks.

"The stimulus package should underscore the nation's commitment to energy efficiency and alternative energy," said Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, arguing for including the tax incentives, despite GOP leaders' opposition to adding to the $161 billion House bill.

Although the energy tax provisions would be extended only to the end of 2009, if they were to continue over 10 years the cost to the government would be $5.75 billion, according to the Finance Committee.

"Investors need certainty. They won't put their money out for a wind energy facility unless there's a reasonable expectation that tax incentives will continue into the future," said Grassley.

The bill includes incentives to spur production of wind farms, biomass energy plants and investments in solar energy plants. It also includes a tax break for making the most efficient appliances and for ultra-energy efficient residential and commercial buildings.

It also would provide tax credits up to $500 to reduce the cost of installing insulation, more efficient furnaces and windows in homes. Approved by Congress in 2005, these credits expired at the end of December just as consumers faced huge increases in fuel costs for winter heating.

The efficiency tax breaks, which would be reinstated for two years, can help to "combat spiraling home energy costs that are expected to average roughly $2,200 this year," said Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, an advocacy group.

Separate provisions aimed at manufacturers and builders would extend tax credits intended to develop the next generation of energy efficient appliances including clothes washers and refrigerators, and for constructing ultra-energy efficient commercial and residential buildings.

Renewable energy industries — wind, biomass and solar — have argued that longer term tax credits are essential to provide assurance to investors in wind turbines or biomass. The bill would extend tax credits for such electricity sources through 2009.

Wind energy grew by 45 percent last year, but continued growth has been jeopardized by the uncertainties over the production tax credit, said Greg Wetstone of the American Wind Energy Association.

"Investors are reluctant to make commitments until they know what the tax policy will be next year," said Wetstone, adding that enactment of the tax extension is "pivotal for one of the fastest growing sectors of the American economy."

The solar energy industry also has argued that certainty on tax policy is key to attracting investors.

"While the solar industry will continue to press for longer extensions (of tax breaks) for commercial and residential projects, this is a win for solar energy and for our economy," said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

In a startlingly swift resolution to the case, Gary Michael Hilton was immediately sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. The judge said she signed off on the deal because the 61-year-old likely would have died in prison anyway before the state had a chance to execute him.

Hilton was indicted Thursday morning by a specially called Dawson County grand jury that accused him of bludgeoning Meredith Emerson on Jan. 4, three days after he was seen with her on a trail in the mountains of northern Georgia.

Hilton told investigators he abducted the physically fit woman in a plan to steal cash from her bank accounts, Dawson County District Attorney Lee Darragh said.

"The sole purpose was to acquire (bank) cards and PIN numbers," Darragh said. "He mentioned at one point that he knew eventually he would take her life."

But Emerson gave him false PINs, and Hilton finally took a tire iron to her head, the prosecutor said. Hilton decapitated her to make it harder for authorities to identify the body, said John Cagle, a special agent in charge with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Authorities have said they are looking at whether Hilton had a hand in the October disappearance of an 80-year-old hiker and his 84-year-old wife in western North Carolina, and in two other killings in Florida. Cagle and Darragh declined to say what effect, if any, Hilton's plea deal might have on those investigations.

The $31-a-share bid of cash or Microsoft stock is 62 percent more than Yahoo's closing price yesterday. Before today, Yahoo had dropped 18 percent this year in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, and said this week that fourth-quarter profit fell 23 percent.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer is attempting the biggest-ever technology takeover after failing to compete with Google in a market that may almost double to $80 billion by 2010. Google has grown faster than Microsoft in every quarter since Google's 2004 initial public offering as its search engine won more users.

``Microsoft is under massive pressure to expand its Internet business to fend off competition from rivals such as Google and this deal shows how desperate they are,'' said Thomas Radinger, a fund manager at Pioneer Investments in Munich, which oversees about $95 billion, including Microsoft shares. ``It's a huge gamble as the price is very steep and it will take years to successfully integrate such a massive acquisition.''

Yahoo rose $8.58, or 45 percent, to $27.76 at 10:46 a.m. in Nasdaq trading. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, fell $2.02, or 6.2 percent, to $30.58, while Google dropped 9.5 percent to $510.75.

Cost Savings

Microsoft said the transaction may cut costs by $1 billion annually for the combined company. Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, said it plans to evaluate the proposal ``promptly.''

``This is kind of a gift from heaven for the Yahoo shareholders who have really been suffering for the last couple years,'' said Georges Yared, chief investment strategist for Yared Investment Research in Wayzata, Minnesota. ``This allows the shareholders to be bailed out.''

Yahoo's inability to crack Google's dominance in search has led to eight straight quarters of declining profit and a stock that, before today, had lost half its value in the past two years.

``It shows how serious the threat is from Google,'' Jordan Rohan, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in New York, said in an interview. ``Yahoo is vulnerable. Investors are losing patience with the Yahoo management team.'' The New York-based analyst rates the stock ``outperform.''

Google yesterday reported a 52 percent increase in fourth- quarter sales growth, its 14th straight quarter exceeding 50 percent. Still, profit and revenue trailed analysts' estimates as it received less money than expected from ad deals with social- networking sites like News Corp.'s MySpace.

Losing Share

Google, based in Mountain View, California, captured 56 percent of U.S. Web queries in December, almost double the combined share for Yahoo and Microsoft, which attracted 18 percent and 13 percent, according to New York-based Nielsen Online. Searches will account for 37 percent of the $27.5 billion U.S. online advertising market in 2008, estimates research firm EMarketer Inc.

Yahoo has also lost sales in the market for graphical, or display, ads to social sites like Facebook Inc. and MySpace. Co- founder Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel as chief executive officer in June to reignite sales growth. Microsoft increased competition with Google by agreeing to buy a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook, the second-most visited social-networking site.

Before today's stock gain, about half of Yahoo's market value came from its investments in China's Alibaba Group and Alibaba.com, Yahoo Japan and South Korea's Gmarket Inc. The company said this week that the value of those investments was more than $10 a share in the latest quarter.

Yahoo Rejection

Microsoft was advised by Morgan Stanley and Blackstone Group LP. Yahoo hasn't disclosed its bankers. Microsoft and Yahoo explored ways to work together in late 2006 and early 2007, according to a letter Ballmer sent to the Yahoo board. Yahoo rejected the idea of being taken over by Microsoft a year ago, the letter said.

``This combination provides value to advertisers in the form of more scale and more inventory,'' Kevin Johnson, who runs Microsoft's Windows and Internet group, said in an interview. ``It provides value to publishers, in terms of integrating the ad platform.''

Yahoo was founded by Yang and David Filo while the two were graduate students at Stanford University in 1995. The co- founders, who own a combined 9.8 percent of Yahoo's stock, took the company public a year later. After a three-year jump in the stock price, they were each worth $4 billion, according to Forbes Magazine. Then the market crashed in 2000, wiping out 86 percent of Yahoo's market value.

Two Houston law firms made the cut among the top advisers to merger and acquisition clients conducting deals in 2007, a new report shows.

Vinson & Elkins LLP, which is ranked as the second largest in the local market, according to the Houston Business Journal 2008 Book of Lists, was 18th out of 20 firms with 101 M&A deals worth $102.6 billion during the year according to M&A advisory and research firm The Mergermarket Group.

The firm also placed 14th, up from 23rd in 2006, in the ranking of legal advisers to North American buyout deals, working 12 transactions with a value of $46 billion.

Baker Botts LLP, the third-largest Houston firm, ranked 18th on the North American buyout list, involved in two deals worth $44 billion.

The top-ranked legal advisers in M&A deals in 2007 in four measured categories were:

New York-based Sullivan & Cromwell LLP (total North American M&A value $470.8 billion);

Los Angeles-based Latham & Watkins LLP (most deals, 303);

New York-based Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP (total North American buyout value $156.4 billion); and

Kirkland & Ellis LLP of Chicago (total number of buyout deals, 85).

The Oregon Supreme Court for a third time has allowed a $79.5 million punitive-damages judgment against Philip Morris, an award twice struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, which suggested it was excessive.

The award was for the family of Jesse Williams, a former Portland janitor who started smoking during a 1950s Army hitch and died in 1997 six months after he was diagnosed with lung cancer. A jury in Portland made the award in 1999.

The Oregon Supreme Court said in Thursday's ruling that Philip Morris and the tobacco industry worked during the 1950s on a "program of disinformation" to create doubt about the dangers of smoking. Williams "learned from watching television that smoking did not cause lung cancer," but, once he came down with it, said the "cigarette people" had lied to him.

Thursday's ruling followed a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last year to send the case back to Oregon.

The state Supreme Court was told to reconsider the award based on its decision about instructions for the trial jury that Philip Morris had proposed and the trial judge rejected.

The Oregon high court on Thursday said there were other defects in the instructions, violating Oregon law, that justified the trial judge's decision.

The Oregon court said that, for example, the instructions Philip Morris suggested would have forbidden the jury to consider the profits the tobacco company made through misconduct that was not illegal.

The Oregon Supreme court decision Thursday didn't take issue with the U.S. Supreme Court on another point it raised -- that Oregon courts couldn't allow jurors to use punitive damages to punish a defendant for harm done to anybody who wasn't part of the suit.

The instructions about punitive damages have been at the center of the legal battle over the suit brought by Williams' widow, Mayola.

Philip Morris will appeal Thursday's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, the tobacco maker said. Business groups have watched the case closely as a precedent setter for large jury awards in product liability suits.

The Oregon high court made its first decision in 2002, refusing to hear an appeal from Philip Morris.