> there has never been any proof that Amiga Inc. ever acquired AOS.

Yes, that would require the contract between Gateway and Amino to be public. And even then, assuming the AmigaOS transfer from Gateway to Amino to be part of that contract, it wouldn't prove that Gateway ever owned AmigaOS, or that Escom ever owned it.

http://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/#TOC-1994-1998:-From-Commodore-Amiga-to-ESCOM-to-Gateway

> this wasn't tested in court as the parties agreed to a settlement
> (avoiding having to produce any documentation in court).

The settlement only prevented the alleged transfer from Amino/AIW to KMOS/AID (via Itec LLC) from being tested. The question if Amino ever got AmigaOS from Gateway, or if Gateway ever got it from Escom, or (that's the interesting part) if Escom ever got it from Commodore, is a whole other matter. That said, if AmigaOS was never legitimately transferred to Escom, none of its successors could have owned it, no matter what's written in their respective contracts. In conclusion, Hyperion and Amiga Inc. deciding against a settlement wouldn't have led to a testing of the transfer chain prior to Amino/AIW as Hyperion were smart enough to not challenge Amino's claim to have purchased AmigaOS from Gateway.

> all we have is Hyperion and AInc agreeing that AInc owns AOS3.1
> without any prior proof to that claim.

Basically, there're three transactions of AmigaOS that are contested:

1. Commodore -> Escom (1995):
dubious, see Hembach's subsequent (1998!) attempt at repairing the situation; only ever challenged by VillageTronic in Germany in 1997 but no real judgement on that

2. Gateway -> Amino (1999):
rather non-dubious; contract is not public but to my mind there's no clue hinting that AmigaOS wasn't part of the deal; never challenged nor tested in court

3. Amino/AIW -> Itec LLC (2003) -> KMOS/AID (2004):
highly dubious, probably company and IP shell games; was challenged by Hyperion but not tested due to settlement

> I [...] will continue to contest the validity of this contention
> until proven otherwise.

Which of the three above mentioned contentions do you aim at?

> If anyone is likely to have committed an illegal act, it is AInc.
> and its licensee Hyperion.

What exactly would be the illegal act that Hyperion committed?