The growing hydrogen trucking startup, Nikola, is being allowed to continue pushing the three year old $2 billion patent lawsuit it has against Tesla, meaning the battle between the two companies continues.

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The lawsuit was shelved earlier this month. by a federal judge after both companies stopped responding to the court’s orders, but now the case is back, although not entirely, as its remaining “administratively closed” but not dismissed.

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Judge James Donato shared in a new order on Tuesday that Nikola has two new January deadlines, one of which is to walk the court through the technologies which are in questions, and the other as a hearing about the Nikola patents that were allegedly infringed.

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“Nikola’s ostensible reasons for not responding to the Court’s orders are not particularly compelling,” the judge said in the Tuesday order. “The case will not be dismissed at this time for failure to prosecute, but that may change if Nikola does not move this case forward to resolution in an efficient and timely manner.”

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Tesla is remaining on its case of there being “no merit” to the claims, and pushing that there is no viable reasoning as to this lawsuit, so we will just have to watch as it plays out from here on and see if the court orders are followed as instructed for the case to continue or not.

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