A federal judge in Massachusetts has dismissed a libel lawsuit filed earlier this year against tech news website Techdirt.

The claim was brought by Shiva Ayyadurai, who has controversially claimed that he invented e-mail in the late 1970s. Techdirt (and its founder and CEO, Mike Masnick) has been a longtime critic of Ayyadurai and institutions that have bought into his claims. "How The Guy Who Didn't Invent Email Got Memorialized In The Press & The Smithsonian As The Inventor Of Email," reads one Techdirt headline from 2012.

One of Techdirt's commenters dubbed Ayyadurai a "liar" and a "charlatan," which partially fueled Ayyadurai's January 2017 libel lawsuit.

In the Wednesday ruling, US District Judge F. Dennis Saylor found that because it is impossible to define precisely and specifically what e-mail is, Ayyadurai's "claim is incapable of being proved true or false."

The judge continued: "One person may consider a claim to be 'fake' if any element of it is not true or if it involves a slight twisting of the facts, while another person may only consider a claim to be 'fake' only if no element of it is true."

While the lawsuit against Masnick has been thrown out, the judge ruled against him on his request to hear the case according to California law. Masnick's attorneys were hoping to win the case under the California anti-SLAPP law, which would have allowed for Masnick to have his legal fees paid.

We reached out to Masnick and Ayyadurai for comment, and we will update the post with any responses we get.

Ayyadurai could appeal the judge's order, but was denied permission to amend the complaint and re-file it.

UPDATE 6:15pm ET: Charles Harder, Ayyadurai's attorney, e-mailed Ars a statement on behalf of his client, saying that Ayyadurai would be appealing the ruling.

"False speech is not protected by the Constitution, and TechDirt’s false and malicious speech about Dr. Ayyadurai should receive no legal protection," Ayyadurai said in the statement. "False speech does harm to readers, who are misled by it; it does harm to journalism, which is weakened by it; and it does harm to the subjects of the speech, whose reputations and careers are damaged by it."

UPDATE Thursday 12:18am ET: Early on Wednesday, Masnick authored a post on Techdirt about the ruling.