Things are heating up in Zenimax’s lawsuit against Oculus. Two months since Zenimax claimed id co-founder John Carmack brought Zenimax intellectual property with him when he went to work for Oculus, the creators of the Oculus Rift virtual reality device are now claiming Zenimax is only pushing the lawsuit since Oculus was acquired by Facebook. The deal reportedly cost Facebook $2 billion. Zenimax is the parent company of id Software, creators of the iconic Doom series, as well as Bethesda - who are best known for the Elder Scrolls franchise.
While Zenimax alleges that their VR technology went into the design of Oculus’ device, and that Carmack’s actions constitute “Breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition against the defendants,” Oculus claims the company had plenty of opportunity to examine the Oculus development code for Zenimax intellectual property.
“There is not a line of ZeniMax code or any of its technology in any Oculus VR product,” Oculus claims in documents acquired by Eurogamer. “ZeniMax had the full source code for the Oculus VR software for over a year and a half (having received it directly from Oculus VR well before it was even released publicly), and could have analyzed it online anytime.”
As of this time, it’s unclear as to whether either party will eventually be found at fault, or if the situation will end up resulting - as these things so frequently do - in an undisclosed out-of-court settlement. The issue seems unlikely to be resolved in the near future however, as both sides have the financial clout to afford a long-winded legal battle and both seem pretty determined to stand their ground.
We’ve asked for a comment from our sources at Zenimax on the matter, but so far nothing is forthcoming. Should that change, we’ll be sure to keep you updated.
In the meantime, here’s a video of some kittens being cute.
Peter Yankowski
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