Epic Wins $4.45 Million in Silicon Knights Case

Epic has emerged victorious from its long-running court case with Silicon Knights. According to a tweet from Epic’s Mark Rein, the jury found for Epic on all counts.

The trial first began in 2007
when Silicon Knights served Epic with a lawsuit alleging that Unreal
Engine 3 did not work as promised. At the time, Silicon Knights
president Denis Dyack wrote that Epic was “unable or unwilling” to fix
the engine’s problems and accused Epic of using licensing fees to
develop Gears of War rather than working on Unreal, and said that the
technical problems forced them to develop a separate engine, making Too Human significantly more expensive to produce.





Today, Epic said the following in a statement: “The jury rejected
Silicon Knights' claim that Epic breached its Unreal Engine 3 license
agreement with Silicon Knights. The jury also found in Epic's favor on
all of its counterclaims, namely that Silicon Knights breached the
license agreement, misappropriated Epic's trade secrets, and infringed
Epic's copyrights in the Unreal Engine 3 code. The jury awarded Epic
damages totaling $4.45 million. Epic has 30 days in which to file a
request to the court for reimbursement of attorneys' fees and costs. The
court previously had thrown out Silicon Knights' fraud claims after
nine days of testimony.”

"We are delighted with the jury's verdict and all of the hard work
done by the Hunton & Williams legal team,” Epic general counsel Jay
Andrews added.

In the five years since the trial began, additional information has slowly emerged.
As the release of Too Human approached in 2008, Silicon Knights sought a
court order to block Epic from viewing code for the game, as the
company had developed a proprietary 3D camera system and was seeking a
patent. Epic eventually counter-sued
and the case went to trial earlier this year. Earlier this month, a
judge ruled that Silicon Knights could earn only one dollar if the case
had fallen in their favor.

In the wake of today's verdict, the future of Silicon Knights remains
uncertain. The developer last released X-Men: Destiny, which received a 5.5
from IGN last year. We've reached out to the studio for its response to
the verdict and will update with any comment we receive.