A legal battle that has weighed heavily on Unreal Engine maker Epic Games and Too Human developer Silicon Knights for over five years has finally been resolved, with Epic winning $4.45 million in counterclaims against the developer.

"Case over. Jury finds for Epic on all counts," Epic Games President Mark Rein tweeted. The company later issued a statement saying that the court found Silicon Knights had "breached the license agreement, misappropriated Epic's trade secrets, and infringed Epic's copyrights in the Unreal Engine 3 code."

Silicon Knights first filed suit against Epic way back in July 2007, alleging that the popular Unreal Engine "did not work as Epic represented it would and, moreover, Epic has been unable or unwilling to fix it." These problems forced Silicon Knights to invest heavily in development of an entirely new engine for Too Human, the developer claimed, causing extreme financial hardship.

Developers working with Unreal Engine 3 registered supportive comments on both sides of the issue as the case slowly moved forward, eventually leading to subpoenas for previously confidential engine contracts.

Silicon Knights' chances in the proceedings were not looking good even before the trial finally got underway earlier this month. Late last year, district judge James Dever III rejected the testimony of industry analyst Terry Lloyd, calling his calculation of $58 million in potential damages to Silicon Knights in the matter "unreliable and speculative." And just before the trial started, Dever set a limit of $1 per claim in damages after Silicon Knights was unable to come up with a legitimate breakdown of its financial harm.

The ruling comes at a delicate time for Silicon Knights, less than a year after the company was forced to lay off half of its employees after the release of the critically panned X-men Destiny and a reported cancellation of a major project in development.