The road to a VR Gaming world has been a tough one, and the development of the Oculus Rift has been no different, the Lawsuit ZeniMax started in 2014, has resulted in Oculus having to pay half a billion dollars to ZeniMax after the judge ruled, that Oculus had violated Zenimax’s Non Disclosure Agreement while developing the Rift, they technically got off easy however, since ZeniMax was originally wanting 4 Billion dollars due to their allegation of mis-apropriation of trade secrets, because John Carmack had stated that software he developed at ZeniMax was Key to making the Rift work, and yet Oculus had dodged attempts to establish a licensing deal.
Oculus statement about the lawsuit was that it was merely an attempt to profit off of Oculus success, and then a spokes person added on to that by stating “The heart of this case was about whether Oculus stole ZeniMax’s trade secrets, and the jury found decisively in our favor” —— “We’re obviously disappointed by a few other aspects of today’s verdict, but we are undeterred. Oculus products are built with Oculus technology. Our commitment to the long-term success of VR remains the same, and the entire team will continue the work they’ve done since day one — developing VR technology that will transform the way people interact and communicate. We look forward to filing our appeal and eventually putting this litigation behind us.”
ZeniMax’s statement the case was this “Technology is the foundation of our business and we consider the theft of our intellectual property to be a serious matter. We appreciate the jury’s finding against the defendants, and the award of half a billion dollars in damages for those serious violations,” said CEO Robert Altman. But global communications director Tracey Thompson’s statement gave the feeling that this isn’t going to be the end of us seeing them and Oculus clash. “We will consider what further steps we need to take to ensure there will be no ongoing use of our misappropriated technology, including by seeking an injunction to restrain Oculus and Facebook from their ongoing use of computer code that the jury found infringed ZeniMax’s copyrights,” she said.
OPINION
It could have been a lot worse for Oculus, but they were not charged for stealing trade secrets, so it is probably not going to be a major loss for them, since partnering with Face Book, has given them a lot of benefits, though i cant really say if anyone is at fault at the end of this, ZeniMax defended their properties, as best they could, and Oculus wasn’t considered at fault by the court so at the end of it all, technology will continue to move forward regardless.
Since this probably wont be the last we will hear from ZeniMax, it will only get rougher to continue developing the Rift if ZeniMax still has a case, though we wont know for sure just yet, if it will hurt its development in the long run.