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One thing I don't think anybody's pointed out is that he was reportedly offered up to $90,000 for it. That's serious money-so serious in fact that I suspect there was a business purpose behind it. What business purpose could be served by getting one of these early models? I doubt if it would be anything good for Google.
I've seen a lot of this sort of stuff. People get freebies because they're special somehow-possibly just convention attendees, sometimes noted developers or reviewers. And then they sell their 'gifts'. Part of their argument is that it's a known practice & the company giving out the stuff doesn't care. Obviously Google does.
The other part is that it was given to them so they're free to do what they want with it. What's ignored is that it was given for a purpose. A classic case of that is betrothal, breach of promise suits. Several courts have ruled that if a gift is given in anticipation of a promised result and the promised result isn't met then the gift must be returned.
This isn't entirely parallel since the device was bought (which is the first time, BTW, that I've heard of people paying to participate in a beta test). But it's similar.
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