I understood the phrase to mean that Sony hopes that this action will intimidate researchers out of investigating Sony's products in the future. And therefore, the author hopes that researchers go ahead and do it any ways.

If they get slapped with onerous litigation, settling is a minor setback for the researcher compared to the Sony's major loss in having an exploit released into the wild.

So, JM2C, but I don't see it as a dig, but rather a call to arms, asking the community to pick up the weapons of the fallen.