Kim Dotcom’s attempts to escape US prosecution on the grounds that his company Megaupload was not based in the country has been thrown out of US District Court.

Judge Liam O'Grady deemed Megaupload's dismissal demands to be "extreme" and denied the request.

In seeking the dismissal, Dotcom’s lawyers used Rule Four of Criminal Procedure, which indicates that a summons be mailed to the company's "last known address within the district or to its principal place of business elsewhere in the United States."

The US government attempted to deliver summons to Megaupload's address in Hong Kong and told the judge that Megaupload was clearly aware of the proceedings.

This line of defence has been used by team Megaupload since July. "Rule 4 does not require a result so extreme as dismissal, and to this Court's knowledge, no court has ever dismissed an indictment for failure to meet Rule 4's secondary mailing requirement," the judge wrote in his order.

Judge O'Grady gave his version of Rule 4, saying that mailing a summons to the address of corporation's alter ego is the same as mailing the summons to the corporation itself.

"So long as the government could prove that an individual defendant is an alter ego of the corporate defendant, the government could satisfy Rule 4's mailing requirement by mailing a copy of the summons to one of the individual defendants once that defendant is extradited to this district," writes the judge. Kim Dotcom’s extradition hearing is scheduled for next March.

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• New questions raised over Kim Dotcom snooping (5 October 2012)
• John Key accused of Dotcom ‘brain fade’ (3 October 2012)
• New Zealand Prime Minister apologizes for Dotcom spying (27 September 2012)
• Kiwi cops forgot Kim Dotcom's visa (26 September 2012)
• NZ spooks acted unlawfully in Megaupload wiretap (24 September 2012)
• More of Kim Dotcom's booty released by court (29 August 2012)
• BREAKING US appeal dismissed in Dotcom case (16 August 2012)