Oculus Rift: ZeniMax could ask to stop the virtual reality helmet

Techno 4 February, 2017

American justice has just issued a decision in favor of ZeniMax in the case against at Oculus . If the subsidiary of Facebook has already been ordered to pay $ 500 million to the parent company of Bethesda , things should not stop there.

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ZeniMax told US website Polygon that it reserves the right to request a temporary injunction stopping the Oculus Rift headsets sales. The technology used to operate the virtual reality helmet is at the heart of the dispute for which Oculus VR was convicted:

We will think about the next steps we have to take to ensure that the technology that has been stolen from us does not continue to be used. These measures include a request for an injunction to prevent Oculus and Facebook from continuing to use code which, as determined by the jury, violates ZeniMax’s copyright.

If he succeeds, the US publisher could get the Oculus Rift sales stopped as long as Oculus VR does not alter the code used to run his virtual reality helmet.

The Dallas District Court ordered Oculus VR to pay $ 500 million to ZeniMax because it found him guilty of violating a confidentiality agreement with ZeniMax and of infringing trademarks And the copyright of the latter.

According to ZeniMax’s complaint, the advances in virtual reality that enabled the commercialization of a headphone were made by John Carmack of the time when he worked for ZeniMax. The fruit of this work, which belongs to ZeniMax, was presented to the founders of Oculus VR under cover of a confidentiality agreement.

According to the American justice, Oculus not only exploited the work of ZeniMax to create the Oculus Rift, John Carmack also copied data belonging to ZeniMax when he left the company. This data was then uploaded to the computer he used at Oculus after his hiring at the Facebook subsidiary.

Note that things should still evolve before the end of this story is known. Indeed, Oculus VR has already announced that he plans to appeal this decision.