Oculus VR: Acquired By Facebook, Sued By Zenimax

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ZeniMax Media Inc., a video-game maker, has sued Oculus VR Inc. for wrongfully taking and exploiting its technical knowledge, copyrighted computer code, and trade secrets. It also accuses Luckey of breaching the contract with it and presenting unfair competition. The complaint has been filed at a federal court in Dallas, Texas.

Oculus has denied the accusations. It said in its email statement that ZeniMax has made no contribution in the VR goggle technology. The company is getting ready to defend itself in the court.

According to the Australian Financial Review, Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $US2 billion. Zenimax claimed that the intellectual property misappropriated by Oculus is worth billions of dollars.

The world's largest social networking site Facebook is betting on Oculus Rift as the next mainstream means of communication. It plans on pushing the wearable hardware into the mainstream market by hiring more engineers and building a supply chain for it.

Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus, had already raised than $US91 million for the VR goggles technology

Zenimax claims that in 2012, one of its employees John Carmack began corresponding with Luckey who was working in a virtual reality headset model which was quite primitive. He named it 'Rift'. Zenimax added physical hardware and specialized software to make it what it is today. The company said that it has signed a confidentiality agreement with Luckey before disclosing these proprietary improvements to him.

Zenimax also said that Carmack had demonstrated the technology at the Electronic Entertainment Expo which was held in Los Angeles in June 2012

Days after the convention, Luckey formed Oculus. Zenimax and Oculus were discussing how the latter would compensate the former when the Oculus grew cold feet and became 'evasive and uncooperative'. Luckey then started hiring Zenimax's employees, which included Carmack.

In August 2016, Oculus had announced that Carmack has been appointed as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Zenimax claims that Oculus and Luckey were fully aware that when Carmax left Zenimax, he stole the company's property and secrets used to design the new Oculus Rift VR goggles. The company is seeking a compensation of two billion dollars for its damages.

An exact report was published by Bloomberg on May 21, 2014. It also mentioned that ZeniMax was founded by Robert A. Altman has been a former lawyer.

After two years, the trial has finally commenced in the case, which will go on for three weeks. It is likely that the trial will include live witnesses like the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.