Oculus VR was hit by a lawsuit from ZeniMax Media Inc. and Id Software LLC. on Wednesday.
Dallas News reports the company is being accused copyright infringement by using their "trade secrets" on in Oculus Rift's technology. The lawsuit comes after Facebook's purchase of Oculus VR for $2 billion.
"Under a binding Non-Disclosure Agreement, ZeniMax provided Defendants with access to intellectual property developed by ZeniMax after years of research and investment," the lawsuit stated, according to Dallas News. "This valuable intellectual property included copyrighted computer code, trade secret information, and technical know-how. The Non-Disclosure Agreement expressly provides that ZeniMax's intellectual property is confidential, owned exclusively by ZeniMax, and cannot be disclosed to or used by any third parties without ZeniMax's prior written approval."
Oculus uses zero lines of code that I wrote while under contract to Zenimax.
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) May 1, 2014
"Defendants have wrongfully taken that ZeniMax intellectual property and commercially exploited it for their own gain," the suit continued. "Defendants now stand to realize billions of dollars in value from ZeniMax's intellectual property. Defendants never obtained a license for the use of ZeniMax's property, nor any right to sell or transfer it to third parties. By this action, ZeniMax seeks damages that will fairly and fully compensate it for Defendants' infringement and misappropriation of its intellectual property. Without this relief, Defendants will continue to profit unjustly."
Oculus VR has repeatedly denied allegations that their company's CTO John Carmack, former employee of ZeniMax, has stolen any intellectual property. Carmack also took to Twitter with his claims of innocence. However, ZeniMax claims their efforts to make Oculus VR aware of the copyright infringement were unsuccessful.
