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Hotz Accuses Sony of "False Representations" to the Court and Petitions for Protective Order

By Pamela Jones et al.

There are new filings in in SCEA v. Hotz, and the ground has shifted somewhat. Sony began the litigation portraying George Hotz as some kind of illegal hacker messing around with Sony's IP. Now Hotz accuses [PDF] Sony of making "material misrepresentations" to the court.

Specifically, Hotz says that Sony Computer Entertainment America falsely claimed at a recent hearing that the Software Developer Kit at issue in this litigation referenced SCEA being in California. The SDK, Hotz says, is owned by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan, and the installation procedures reference Sony Japan, not SCEA. This is relevant, Sony argued, because if they found any of the SDK tools on his computer, it would "establish contacts between SCEA and Mr. Hotz" in that they claimed SCEA is the only entity distributing the SDKs. The discovery that the court ordered was based on SCEA's representations. Now what? Should the discovery even be allowed?

Hotz has filed a motion for a protective order, as the parties continue to wrangle about what should happen to Hotz's impounded hard drives. At the same time, SkyLayer Technologies has filed a motion to quash [PDF].

Full post as published by Groklaw on March 18, 2011 (boomark / email).