In a breather to Facebook (FB), the court has rejected a video game company’s plea to ban the sale of its Oculus devices and has halved the penalty slapped on it. ZeniMax had filed a lawsuit against Facebook-owned Oculus for allegedly stealing its software details.
Facebook sees virtual reality as an integral part of its future, and so, it made sense when the company announced its acquisition of VR firm Oculus. But their journey was a bumpy one right from the word go. The lawsuit was filed by ZeniMax only a few months into the acquisition.
ZeniMax claims that when John Carmack left its unit id Software to become CTO of Oculus, he stole some intellectual property from the former company. A Dallas jury hit a $500 million verdict on Facebook and its virtual reality division that needed to be given to ZeniMax. The company will now have to pay $200 million for violating the contract and $50 million for infringing copyrighted work.
According to Bloomberg, Facebook intends to appeal against the remaining $250 million also. Zuckerberg has asserted before that Oculus was built on their own technology.
Following its lawsuit against Facebook, ZeniMax had also attacked Samsung over the Gear VR headsets. Samsung had worked with Oculus for its Gear VR headsets, using a technology that ZeniMax claims they had developed. ZeniMax claimed that despite being aware of the lawsuit filed against Oculus, Samsung continued making the headsets without seeking permission from the copyright owner.