Skip to main content

Zenimax wins $500M in Oculus suit, but jury says Rift isn’t built on stolen tech

Oculus' John Carmack responds to verdict, denies he stole source code

zenimax oculus 500 million palmer luckey touch
eVRydayVR
For the past two and a half years, video game publisher ZeniMax — known for the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, and the Doom reboot — has been embroiled in legal action against Oculus, the company behind the Rift virtual reality headset. Today, a jury in Dallas, Texas awarded ZeniMax half a billion dollars in damages.

It was decided that Palmer Luckey — and by extension Oculus, the company he co-founded — did not comply with a nondisclosure agreement that he had signed. The jury also ruled that Oculus did not misappropriate trade secrets, as Zenimax had claimed, according to a report from Polygon.

Oculus will be forced to pay $200 million for breaching the non-disclosure agreement, as well as $50 million for copyright infringement. The company and Luckey will each have to pay $50 million for false designation, and its co-founder Brendan Iribe will have to pay $150 million for the same charge. While the total sum is $500 million, Oculus itself is only paying $200 million — a stiff fine, but likely not enough to be life-threatening for the company.

Oculus is backed by Facebook, and the damages set to be paid don’t come close to equaling what the social media giant paid for the company in 2014. Facebook has shown no signs of losing faith in virtual reality’s potential for the future, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see Oculus suffer too much as a result of this ruling.

It’s worth noting that ZeniMax’s attorney, Anthony Sammi, called for the company to receive a much larger sum in his closing argument. Sammi argued that the company deserved $2 billion in compensation, and that Oculus should be subject to a further $2 billion in punitive damages.

This dispute got underway when John Carmack left his role at the ZeniMax-owned id Software to become Oculus’ CTO, having split his time between the two companies for several months. It was alleged that Carmack had taken knowledge and technology developed during his time at ZeniMax with him when he joined Oculus full time.

However, Oculus has long since held the position that Carmack cut ties with ZeniMax because he was eager to work with virtual reality, and wasn’t given the opportunity to do so. Attention was drawn to the fact that ZeniMax started its legal action just weeks after Oculus was bought by Facebook in a $2 billion deal.

Following the verdict, Carmack released his own statement on Facebook, saying that he “never tried to hide or wipe any evidence” — in reference to ZeniMax’s claim that he had intentionally erased data and even research how to do so using Google — and denied that source code owned by Id Software was “non-literally copied” and given to Oculus.

“The analogy that the expert gave to the jury was that if someone wrote a book that was basically Harry Potter with the names changed, it would still be copyright infringement,” Carmack continued. “I agree. That is the literary equivalent of changing the variable names when you copy source code. However, if you abstract Harry Potter up a notch or two, you get Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, which also maps well onto Star Wars and hundreds of other stories. These are not copyright infringement.”

Carmack also said that the code examples used in the courtroom isn’t in the public record, and that “the internet would have viciously mocked the analysis” had it been released.

The $500 million will likely go a long way for ZeniMax, given that the company was valued at around $2.5 billion in 2016. On the other hand, it seems that Oculus got off fairly lightly, given the scope of the charges leveled against them.

What’s more, the fact that it was decided that Oculus didn’t misappropriate trade secrets will allow the company to downplay its misdeeds. The breach of a nondisclosure agreement is hardly as damning as allegations that the company stole the technology used as the basis for its flagship product, the Rift.

Oculus apparently plans to appeal the decision. “The heart of this case was about whether Oculus stole ZeniMax’s trade secrets, and the jury found decisively in our favor,” a spokesperson for the company told Polygon shortly after the ruling. “We’re obviously disappointed by a few other aspects of today’s verdict, but we are undeterred.”

Updated on 02-03-2017 by Gabe Gurwin: Added statement from John Carmack on trial verdict.

Brad Jones
Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…
Upgrading to a 4K monitor? Amazon has a 27-inch for 20% off
The Innocn 27-inch Mini LED 4K Gaming Monitor on a white background.

Amazon has a great deal on a 4K gaming monitor that you might not ordinarily consider. While monitor deals are typically full of Dell, Alienware, and HP models, Amazon has a $160 discount on the Innocn 27-inch Mini LED 4K Gaming Monitor with a USB-C connection. It normally costs $800 but it’s currently down to $640, so it’s a fairly tempting proposition. If you fancy trying something a little different from the mainstream brands, take a look at what else it has to offer below.

Why you should buy the Innocn 27-inch Mini LED 4K Gaming Monitor
While you won’t see Innocn on any of the best gaming monitor lists, on paper it sounds very promising. Its 27-inch panel is a 4K one with resolutions of up to 3840 x 2160. Alongside that, it has a refresh rate of 160Hz with a 1ms response time. Colors wise, it has 99% DCI-P3 Adobe RGB color gamut support with HDR1000 ensuring everything should look gorgeous. Whatever you’re playing will look more vibrant while it’s also a good option for video or image editing.

Read more
Quick! This MSI gaming laptop dropped from $1,500 to $1,000
The MSI Stealth 14-inch gaming laptop at a side angle.

One of the better gaming laptop deals comes via Best Buy with a huge $500 off the MSI Stealth 14-inch gaming laptop. It normally costs $1,500, so with the price down to $1,000, you’re getting a seriously good deal for the latest tech. If you’re keen to know more, keep reading while we take you through everything.

Why you should buy the MSI Stealth 14-inch gaming laptop
MSI is one of the best laptop brands around despite not being quite as big a name as some rivals. Its penchant is gaming hardware and that’s shown in the MSI Stealth 14-inch gaming laptop. It has an Intel Core i7-13620H processor along with 16GB of memory and 1TB of SSD storage, so it has all the key components you could need. Alongside that is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card with 8GB of dedicated VRAM.

Read more
How to unjam a printer and stop it from happening again
Clearing a jam on the HP Smart Tank 5101 isn't easy.

There are few things as frustrating as a paper jam. Unfortunately, it's all too common for paper jams to happen when you rush to print labels for express shipments or need hard copies for a meeting. That's true on even the best printers.

A printer jam not only stops your progress, but also demands immediate attention because you won't be able to print until it's cleared. It could be a serious mistake to ignore the issue and try printing again since that could damage the printer.

Read more