Oculus has been ordered to pay half a billion dollars to the games company ZeniMax after a jury determined that the Oculus CEO, Palmer Luckey, failed to comply with a non-disclosure agreement.
The case was tried in a district court in the north district of Texas and stems from a claim that Oculus had improperly used code from ZeniMax to build its Rift VR headset. ZeniMax sued the virtual reality start-up in May 2014, just months after it was acquired by Facebook.
ZeniMax is the parent company of ID Software, maker of the Doom and Quake games, whose co-founder John Carmack is now the chief technology officer of Oculus. Oculus plans to appeal against the decision and has stated that Oculus is committed to the long-term success of VR.
During the closing arguments, ZeniMax’s attorney called for a much larger award of $2 billion in compensation and a further $2 billion in damages. Oculus’s attorney argued that the lawsuit was driven by jealousy and anger, not facts.
During the three-week trial, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, testified, characterising the plaintiffs as opportunists.
