Remember that that Zenimax Media lawsuit against Facebook/Oculus that began around four years ago, with the accusations that Oculus had used some of Zenimax’s intellectual property? Well, it has been announced today that the litigation has now been settled.
Robert Altman, ZeniMax’s Chairman and CEO, made the following statement regarding the resolution of the case: “We are pleased that a settlement has been reached and are fully satisfied by the outcome. While we dislike litigation, we will always vigorously defend against any infringement or misappropriation of our intellectual property by third parties.”
While the lawsuit has finally come to an end the actual terms of the settlement have been kept confidential, although Facebook has likely shelled out some cash.
The issue started in 2014 with Zenimax Media accusing Oculus of: “illegally misappropriating ZeniMax trade secrets relating to virtual reality technology, and infringing ZeniMax copyrights and trademarks.” This was namely due to both Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and current Oculus CTO John Carmack previously working for the company.
So Zenimax was looking for damages of $4 billion. In early 2017 when a jury found in favour of Zenimax, saying that Oculus violated a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) but decided it wasn’t guilty of misappropriating trade secrets, they awarded Zenimax Media $500 million USD.
The media company wasn’t exactly happy with that amount, but in a further twist in the case a federal court in Dallas, Texas halved the damage payment to $250 million. This obviously went to appeal and its that decision which has finally come to a close.
Oh, and don’t forget that Carmack started his own lawsuit against Zenimax Media in 2017, due to him not receiving the final payment from the sale of his videogame studio id Software, amounting to the sizable sum of $22.5 million. The CTO took to Twitter a couple of months back to reveal that his personal lawsuit had now come to an end.
So the big VR lawsuit has now come to an end, should there be any more, VRFocus will let you know.
via Mint VR