The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court that dismissed the lawsuit of former Rutgers quarterback Ryan Hart's against EA Sports related to the NCAA franchise. Hart sued EA using his image in NCAA Football without his permission and without properly compensating him, he claims. Hart, who played for Rutgers from 2002-05 filed his suit in 2009 against EA.

USA Today reports that Former Connecticut guard Tate George has admitted in a deposition taken last year that avatars in several versions of a video game that are supposed to represent him do not resemble him at all and were used multiple times to represent other players in the game. George is one of several former NCAA players suing the NCAA and EA Sports for illegally using their likenesses. The group of players are trying to get certified as a class.

This should come as no shock to anyone that has been following the saga between the state of Rhode Island and bankrupt game development house 38 Studios: the state of Rhode Island has decided that it will sell off the studios' assets (which it now owns) to pay down some of the deficit it was left with after 38 Studios went bankrupt.

The BBC reports that four members of the hacktivist group LulzSec based in the United Kingdom have been sentenced this week. They are Ryan Cleary, Jake Davis, Mustafa al-Bassam and Ryan Ackroyd. All four pled guilty to various charges either last year or earlier this year.

The murder trial of Chris Harris from Arminton, Illinois began earlier this month in Peoria, Illinois. Harris is accused of murdering Rick and Ruth Gee and three of their children with a tire iron in the family’s Beason home in late September 2009. One of the children, a three-year-old girl, survived the attack. Prosecutors laid out what happened after brothers Chris and Jason Harris, intoxicated from a night of drinking and doing cocaine visited the Gee home in search of marijuana.

The U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. has sided with Nintendo in a patent lawsuit filed by Motiva LLC in 2008 alleging that the Wii console infringed on technology that facilitated "a system to track player position and movement." In its ruling the court gave the plaintiff a scathing rebuke while rejecting its appeal, noting that litigation was "Motiva's only activity that could be related to commercializing the technology."

The Columbus Dispatch reports that 23-year-old Todd M. Miller has been sentenced to one year of house arrest for his part in the 2008 security breach of Sony's PlayStation Network. Miller wasn't convicted on charges directly related to the hacking, but for destroying computers the FBI was interested in investigating related to the crime. Miller was sentenced last week.

According to this Kotaku report citing two unnamed sources with knowledge of the situation, TimeGate Studios has laid off its entire staff. The developer behind Section 8 and the co-developer of Aliens: Colonial Marines sent everyone home early today according to the sources.

Back in March we told you about Moses Lake, Washington teen Nathon Brooks, the 14-year-old charged with attempted murder for shooting his parents with a .22 caliber pistol while they were sleeping because they took away his video games (see this story for more details).

World of Tanks developer Wargaming.net has filed a lawsuit against Changyou.com and Beijing Gamease Age Digital Technology Co. in the United States Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The lawsuit alleges that the defendant(s) "stole" Wargaming.net's intillectual property to create an online tank game called "Project Tanks" that is "disturbingly similar" to World of Tanks. Wargaming.net is using the law firm Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.

A former EA Sports producer says that the NCAA games developed by EA Sports over the years were designed to replicate actual players without using their names. This is according to a deposition given by former EA Sports producer Jeremy Strauser, who testified in a deposition for the Ed O'Bannon lawsuit against the NCAA, Collegiate Licensing Company, and EA Sports. The deposition, along with other documents from the case are part of EA's filings with the court last week. Jeremy Strauser worked at EA from 1995 until 2011.

An attorney for convicted Deltona, Florida mass murderer Troy Victorino will once again attempt to appeal his client's conviction during arguments this week before the Florida Supreme Court. In September 2006, Victorino and another killer were sentenced to death for the brutal 2004 slaying of six people and a dog using baseball bats and knives. The crime has been described as one of the most gruesome mass killings in the state's history.

Courthouse News reports that Apple's plan to settle with parents over its failure to get parental consent before minors made purchases in various apps has been approved by a federal court. Apple's settlement would provide all class members with a minimum $5 iTunes store credit (or cash payment for those who no longer have an iTunes account), according to court documents.

Responding to the widespread reporting that the "Nyan Cat" creator and "Keyboard Cat" creator sued Warner Bros. over the inclusion of the Internet memes in the game Scribblenauts Unlimited, Christopher "Nyan" Orlando Torres said that he tried to talk to Warner Bros. about the issue but was disrespected on multiple occasions.

Aliens: Colonial Marines publisher Sega and developer Gearbox Software have responded to a class action lawsuit filed this week related to claims that the game was the falsely advertised.

A Sega spokesperson said that the company could not discuss the specifics of the ongoing litigation, and that the lawsuit was baseless:

Aliens: Colonial Marines co-developer and Section 8 developer TimeGate Studios has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas Southern Bankruptcy Court, according to court documents obtained by Polygon.

Warner Bros. Interactive is no stranger to the fighting battles about trademarks and copyrights in courts, but a case filed by two Internet meme creators has the industry giant in a role reversal. According to this NeoGAF thread Charles "Keyboard" Schmidt (Keyboard Cat meme) and Christopher "Nyan" Orlando Torres (Nyan Cat meme) filed a lawsuit against publisher Warner Bros.

Damion Perrine has filed a lawsuit against Sega related to Aliens: Colonial Marines, which he claims Sega represented falsely in its marketing as a far superior game than was delivered to consumers. He claims Sega engaged in "a classic bait-and-switch" with the game and that it also engaged in false advertising, breach of warranties, fraud in the inducement, negligent misrepresentation and committed consumer law violations. He is seeking to have the lawsuit certified as a class action and has sued on behalf of everyone in the United States who bought the game on or before Feb.

A federal judge has ruled that a case brought against EA by the original developer of John Madden Football may proceed to trial. The developer, Robin Antonick, claims that he was the original designer and developer of the Madden NFL series (he worked on the early computer-based versions of the game) and is owed "millions in unpaid royalties, punitive damages and disgorgement of all profits arising from the $5 billion Madden NFL franchise."

The Federal District Court in Seattle, Washington has given Google's Motorola Mobility a slap in the face, ruling that its FRAND patent fees collected from Microsoft to be worth only about $1.8 million a year. The court said that the H.264 video standard and the 802.11 wireless standard patents weren't worth the $4 billion Motorola was seeking to collect.

THQ's long list of creditors are seeking an estimated $200 million from the bankrupt publisher, according to a filing with the Bancrupcty Court of Delaware.

Activision UK has come out of court victorious in a case against a former PR executive and a consultant from Activision's external PR company, Frank PR. Two people, Activision PR executive Kathryn Kirton, and Frank PR consultant Jamie Kaye were found guilty of embezzling money from the company.

In an extensive New York Times article on the demise of former Red Sox all-star pitcher Curt Schilling's 38 Studios, current Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee (I) shares his thoughts on what led to the studio defaulting on a $75 million loan from the state and the studio's eventual bankruptcy.

Cody "Recursion" Kretsinger, the Lulzsec member who pled guilty last April for his part in hacking the Sony Pictures Entertainment website, has been sentenced to one year in jail, ordered to pay $605,663 in restitution, and perform 1,000 hours of community service.

Tim Langdell and Edge Games, Inc. have lost a bid to retain the rights to the "Edge" trademark, thanks to a ruling by a Californian Court. The court sided with Electronic Arts, who Langdell and his company sued (among many others) for using the word "edge" in its game Mirror's Edge.

TimeGate Studios faces $7.35 million in damages and has lost control of the Section 8 license following a successful appeal by SouthPeak Interactive. TimeGate Studios tried to defend a lower court ruling in the fraud lawsuit from SouthPeak Interactive after that court threw out an arbitration decision that led to the judgment.

Electronic Arts will have to give customers who spent money on an EA football game between 2005 and 2012 triple the amount of settlement money per game thanks to recent modifications to the $27 million settlement in a class action suit against Electronic Arts, according to a notice obtained by Polygon. Under the new terms, a consumer who bought an NFL game will now receive $20.37 per last-gen game on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Windows PC, up from $6.79.

A fourth member of the hacktivist group LulzSec has pled guilty to attacking websites owned by Sony, Nintendo, and News Corp., according to Bloomberg. Ryan Ackroyd entered a guilty plea at a hearing in London today. He will be sentenced on May 14 along with the three other hackers, according to presiding Judge Deborah Taylor.

A lawsuit filed by a former Zynga product manager claims that non-executive level employees were not allowed to sell stock in the company after Zynga's IPO in 2011 for 165 days, even as executives cashed out early. Former employee Wendy Lee goes on to claim that the 165 day window was lifted for executives, who doubled the proceeds from their sale of stock, while regular employees took sharp losses as Zynga's stock priced plummeted. By the time Lee was allowed to sell her shares Zynga's dropped by 49.3 percent.

Lodsys, a company that seems to specialize only in filing patent infringement lawsuits, has added a number of new video game industry targets in the mobile games space. According to Ars Technica, Gameloft, Gamevil, BackFlip Studios, Pocket Gems and The Walt Disney Company are now named defendants for violating a patent the company holds related to technology used for in-app purchasing.