In an opinion that has defined a section of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a law that has been clouded by decades of amendments, a federal judge in Philadelphia has ruled in favor of an Internet startup company and against retail giant QVC.

U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, who joined the bench at the end of 2014, rejected QVC's motion for a preliminary injunction that would have barred the startup called Resultly from selling its intellectual property before the case is over.

QVC filed suit last year after Resultly's method of crawling its website caused the site to slow down and become inaccessible to some customers, which led to a loss of sales.