Update: According to a statement issued by ZeniMax, the company may seek a court order to halt the sales of the Oculus Rift headset.
A jury has awarded ZeniMax Media $500 million in the company’s lawsuit against Oculus VR. The lawsuit, filed in 2014, alleged that Oculus used code belonging to ZeniMax while developing the Oculus Rift headset. The Texas jury found that Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Oculus, broke a non-disclosure agreement that he had signed. The jury did not believe, however, that Oculus misappropriated trade secrets as ZeniMax had claimed.
Oculus VR itself is paying $300 million of the $500 million total; $200 million for breaking the NDA, $50 million for copyright infringement, and $50 million for false designation. Luckey has to pay $50 million for false designation as well. Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe has to pay $150 million for the same.
An Oculus spokesperson told Polygon, “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.”
ZeniMax was seeking $4 billion in the suit. Both John Carmack and Palmer Luckey were in the courtroom when the verdict was read.
Source: Polygon
Jennifer is a games journalist, former games journalist and PR Manager at Gearbox. They contributed 234 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: went on to write for Windows Central and later managed PR for Gearbox Software.