Earlier this year ZeniMax managed to win a $500 million outcome on its lawsuit against the Facebook-owned Oculus for illegally using its VR technology. A staggering amount of money, offset by the equally staggering fact that for Facebook that figure isn't enough to cause any major damage to its brand. But, that's just the opening salvo as ZeniMax are looking to block sales of Oculus Rifts or impose a 10-year 20% royalty fee. Plus, increase the damages to... 1 billion dollars.
Bonus points if you read that last bit in the voice of Dr. Evil.
According to the latest developments, thanks to
ArsTechnica.
US District Judge Ed Kinkeade of the Southern District of Texas heard arguments in that injunction case Tuesday, and he also addressed a ZeniMax request for an additional $500 million in false designation damages and lawyer's fees. In court filings, ZeniMax argues that "the jury verdict clearly establishes that Oculus wrongly obtained ZeniMax VR technology under the NDA and used it... to establish a business that would not have existed without ZeniMax."
In its defense Oculus points to the fact that ZeniMax currently doesn't offer any products that directly compete with the Rift, and that because the
original events that led to the current situation happened years ago, well, its too late. Plus, it claims that ZeniMax hasn't been able to offer any evidence of current Oculus source code that infringes on the early code that the jury found to infringe on ZeniMax's copyright.
And to think, we didn't know if we'd ever be able to run on our go-to Oculus header pic.
Posted 03:37pm 22/6/17
IANAL but I don't think that's how IP works.
Posted 03:43pm 22/6/17
Posted 03:46pm 22/6/17
Posted 04:23pm 22/6/17
Posted 04:53pm 22/6/17
IANAL too but this might be their defence against their products being blocks. I'm guessing if code they stole is used in a product that directly competes with ZeniMax, then that could be used to block OR's current products. But if the code was used in a product that is NOT competing, then maybe ZeniMax doesn't have a case.
Posted 08:03pm 24/6/17
Posted 08:17pm 24/6/17
Maybe this is exactly why they screwed up. I feel like Facebook went through a stage where it was gobbling up companies, really big companies, too quickly for its own good. Of course all of that created this mess imo
Posted 07:52am 26/6/17
there has been stagnation in this for a while and a lot of promotion of mediocrity to compensate
the problem for legals is that a company like Facebook, founded on a strategy of idea theft at the right time to take advantage of it first, only really exists because of the exploitation of our sense of the need to connect
Zenimax are acting like the RCA of the time versus some new and potentially progressive technology called Television that they lost the control of
Posted 11:34am 26/6/17
Posted 07:02pm 26/6/17