After more than three years, ZeniMax came out $500M richer from the lawsuit they brought against Oculus VR in a case that revolved around the non-disclosure agreement violated by Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey and the alleged theft of documents and proprietary development tool by Oculus VR CTO John Carmack, formerly of id Software. While the jury determined that Oculus VR is clear of any charges relating to stolen assets, they did not come out unscathed and was ordered to pay up. Of the half a billion dollars to go to ZeniMax, $50 million is to come out directly from Palmer Luckey’s pockets and $150 million from former CEO Brendan Iribe for false designation. The breaking of the NDA itself cost Oculus $200 million, with $50 million tacked on for copyright infringement and another $50 million for false designation according to the court reports.
In an official statement, Oculus VR declares:
“The heart of this case was about whether Oculus stole ZeniMax’s trade secrets, and the jury found decisively in our favor. We’re obviously disappointed by a few other aspects of today’s verdict, but we are undeterred. Oculus products are built with Oculus technology. Our commitment to the long-term success of VR remains the same, and the entire team will continue the work they’ve done since day one – developing VR technology that will transform the way people interact and communicate. We look forward to filing our appeal and eventually putting this litigation behind us.”
An official ZeniMax spokesperson also released their own statement regarding the matter:
“We are pleased that the jury in our case in the U.S. District Court in Dallas has awarded ZeniMax $500,000,000 for Defendants’ unlawful infringement of our copyrights and trademarks, and for the violation of our non-disclosure agreement with Oculus pursuant to which we shared breakthrough VR technology that we had developed and that we exclusively own. In addition, the jury upheld our complaint regarding the theft by John Carmack of RAGE source code and thousands of electronic files on a USB storage device which contained ZeniMax VR technology. While we regret we had to litigate in order to vindicate our rights, it was necessary to take a stand against companies that engage in illegal activity in their desire to get control of new, valuable technology.”
ZeniMax’ attorney Anthony Sammi argued in the closing arguments last week that the company should actually be awarded $2 billion dollars plus $4 billion more in punitive damages, comparing the whole incident to a heist.
