Here We Go! Zenimax Claims Rights to the Occulus Rift

[Val the Moofia Boss]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/05/01/ze...-john-carmack/

Yep! Another company - frustrated by the not-so-well release of one of it's flagship titles - is trying to make up for it, by claiming Occulus technology was stolen from John Carmack, who was purportedly working at Zenimax at the time (read: It's not uncommon for companies to "claim" rights to a big hit enterprise by saying that they invented it first when they "thought" about making it). If Zuckerburg is smart, he'll fight it, and ultimately he could probably make the court case more expensive to fight then the money Zenimax will recieve.

Looks like we can expect some good, juicy theater to happen at the courts!

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Oculus, for its part, denies ZeniMax's claims. "It's unfortunate, but when there's this type of transaction, people come out of the woodwork with ridiculous and absurd claims. We intend to vigorously defend Oculus and its investors to the fullest extent," an Oculus spokesperson told IGN.

[Sharuko]

To much editorializing in the title, they didn't claim rights to Occulus Rift, they said if it wasn't for them key tech to make the product wouldn't be available. Why should Facebook reap all the proceeds if other companies helped in the process?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

To much editorializing in the title, they didn't claim rights to Occulus Rift, they said if it wasn't for them key tech to make the product wouldn't be available. Why should Facebook reap all the proceeds if other companies helped in the process?

No, they are claiming rights to it, in addition to receiving compensation. Read the whole story!

1. If they have proof that Occulus code was created by Zenimax, they would've shown it by now, and a settlement would already be in the process.

2. Zenimax's main claim will probably be; "Since we are the parent company of Id software, we own all assests belonging to Id software. Therefore, we own Occulus Rift."

3. Or, in another possible scenario; "Our employee 'thought' of writing code for a VR headset, but Id software made one first. Therefore, we want to cash in on the venture because our employee 'thought' of doing it first."

[Symphonic]

I don't care so much about Oculus Rift anymore since they sold to facebook. I don't fancy playing a game and having ads pop up or other social network things. No thanks, I don't think I'll be getting one.

[Edge-]

1. If they have proof that Occulus code was created by Zenimax, they would've shown it by now, and a settlement would already be in the process.

Legal proceedings aren't quite that cut and dry, unfortunately. We don't have documents from both sides yet, as neither side has gone to court yet. It will only be once technology from both sides is seen by a judge that we can determine whether it was taken from Zenimax or not. Zenimax simply publicly showing the code/hardware is entirely pointless as they would have no way to force Oculus to do the same, and they'd essentially be giving away their exclusive ownership of the tech.

2. Zenimax's main claim will probably be; "Since we are the parent company of Id software, we own all assests belonging to Id software. Therefore, we own Occulus Rift."

Well, they do own all assets belonging to Id software, they owned the company. That means they own all work done by all employees at Id, including any work that John Carmack did while on company time. And they're not saying they own it, they're saying that they're owed royalties on it based on the claim that their proprietary tech is in it. If it is, they are 100% in the right, but we don't know if they are or not.

3. Or, in another possible scenario; "Our employee 'thought' of writing code for a VR headset, but Id software made one first. Therefore, we want to cash in on the venture because our employee 'thought' of doing it first."

They'd have to prove that the code written there is identical, or identical enough, to the code written at Oculus to prove that it was possibly illegally given to Oculus by someone within Zenimax/ID, or they'd simply need to have it patented. A simple claim of, "Oh, we started working on VR then they did too!" wouldn't even make it to a court.

[Afrospinach]

They'd have to prove that the code written there is identical, or identical enough, to the code written at Oculus to prove that it was possibly illegally given to Oculus by someone within Zenimax/ID, or they'd simply need to have it patented. A simple claim of, "Oh, we started working on VR then they did too!" wouldn't even make it to a court.

Any company with a hint of engineering aptitude and even a lot that don't will usually have some clause in their contract, the gist of which is "any idea or invention you come up with while working here is ours". They may have a much stronger claim to this than people realise. It doubt they would bother otherwise, and we call all look at this positively and see that apparently Oculus Rift is something worth fighting over

[Varyk]

This is really funny. Mark Zuckerburg being accused of using or or buying something based off somebody else's code. You really can't make this stuff up.

[Sharuko]

No, they are claiming rights to it, in addition to receiving compensation. Read the whole story!

I read the whole thing, and you editorialized the whole thing, without the facts behind it. Claiming they only did it because of the performance of their flagship titles, when this dispute goes all the way back to August 2012 it isn't something new.

"The proprietary technology and know-how Mr. Carmack developed when he was a ZeniMax employee, and used by Oculus, are owned by ZeniMax. Well before the Facebook transaction was announced, Mr. Luckey acknowledged in writing ZeniMax’s legal ownership of this intellectual property. It was further agreed that Mr. Luckey would not disclose this technology to third persons without approval. Oculus has used and exploited ZeniMax’s technology and intellectual property without authorization, compensation or credit to ZeniMax."

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/01/z...-oculus-stole/

So when they sold the company to Facebook (3rd party), ZeniMax decided all bets are off.

ZeniMax is not making the claim without reason, look at the contract signed by Palmer Luckey. Based on the facts, ZeniMax is entitled to a piece of the 2 billion dollar pie, now the only question is how much.

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Another interesting fact is this stuff is not new to Bethesda/ZeniMax they sued EA back in the day (1988), because EA stole code from Bethesda to make the Madden video game series, and they won that battle.

That success caught the eye of Electronic Arts, who at the time was looking to enter the football game market. So Bethesda was hired to develop a follow-up to Gridiron! for EA, which the publisher was going to call John Madden Football. Not a bad deal for a studio with one game under its belt!P

Things started getting weird, though, when the game Bethesda developed never actually landed on retail shelves. Suspecting that EA had signed the developer just to get its hands on the physics code underpinning the game, Bethesda eventually sued EA in 1988, demanding $7.3 million in compensation.

http://kotaku.com/5816920/before-eld...created-madden