Facebook's Oculus to pay ZeniMax $500 mn for violating ZeniMax NDA
02 Feb 2017
Oculus has been ordered to pay $500 mn in a lawsuit with games company ZeniMax. Polygon reported that a jury awarded the sum after determining that Oculus executives had violated a ZeniMax non-disclosure agreement in the early days of building the Oculus Rift VR headset.
However, it also decided that Oculus was not guilty of misappropriating trade secrets, as alleged by ZeniMax. (See: Jury hears closing arguments in Zenimax-Facebook battle over VR headset Rift)
According to digital news publication Polygon, the $500-million award comprised $200 million for NDA violation, plus $50 million for copyright infringement, a $50-million award against both Oculus and co-founder Palmer Luckey and $150 million against former CEO Brendan Iribe for false designation. Though ZeniMax had asked for $4 billion, it was a substantial judgment against Oculus, according to commentators, and one that the company planned to appeal.
ZeniMax had charged in the lawsuit, filed in 2014, that Oculus had improperly used code from ZeniMax in order to build its Rift VR headset. Oculus CTO John Carmack, co-founded id Software, the parent company of ZeniMax.
Luckey had communicated with Carmack, while he was still at id Software, developing the Rift headset prototype, and Oculus used id game Doom 3 to sell to early backers on the headset.
Luckey will have to personally pay $50 million in the suit, while former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe will be forced to pay $150 million.
Meanwhile, Facebook told TechCrunch that ZeniMax Media was actually seeking a reported $6 billion in this case, not the $4 billion that was earlier reported.
Facebook said in an official comment it sent TechCrunch on the ruling, ''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.''
