Facebook ordered to pay $500 million in damages over VR suit

Facebook got Faceslapped in court when they were ordered to pay $500 Million.

The award was because of a lawsuit for theft of intellectual property.

The awardee is ZeniMax.

Bog corporate fighting.


Facebook ordered to pay $500 million in damages over VR suit

Facebook co-founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, speaks at an Oculus developers conference while wearing a virtual reality headset in San Jose, California
Facebook COO on Oculus lawsuit: Considering options to appeal
2 Hours Ago | 01:48

Facebook's Oculus lost a case against game maker ZeniMax, leaving the tech company on the hook for $500 million.

A jury ordered Facebook to pay $500 million in damages to ZeniMax due to theft of intellectual property on Wednesday.

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg told CNBC's Julia Boorstin that she was "disappointed in certain elements of the decision." Sandberg added she was "considering our options to appeal," and the verdict was "not material to our financials."

a reply to: xuenchen

That's great. But 500 mill is a drop in the basket for that guy/ company. This may start a chain reaction to pull these guys down.

ZeniMax sued Oculus for allegedly stealing its intellectual property. The company claimed Oculus founder Palmer Luckey "commercially exploited" Zenimax computer code and trade secrets in order to develop its products. It also said Oculus' VR device Oculus Rift was "primitive" until John Carmack, Oculus chief technology officer and founder of a company owned by ZeniMax, improved on the device using his knowledge from his previous work as a ZeniMax employee.

so, basically he was just following in bill gates footsteps.

We are pleased that the jury in our case in the U.S. District Court in Dallas has awarded ZeniMax $500,000,000 for Defendants’ unlawful infringement of our copyrights and trademarks, and for the violation of our non-disclosure agreement with Oculus pursuant to which we shared breakthrough VR technology that we had developed and that we exclusively own. In addition, the jury upheld our complaint regarding the theft by John Carmack of RAGE source code and thousands of electronic files on a USB storage device which contained ZeniMax VR technology. While we regret we had to litigate in order to vindicate our rights, it was necessary to take a stand against companies that engage in illegal activity in their desire to get control of new, valuable technology.

when he quit id Software, Carmack admitted he secretly downloaded and stole over 10,000 documents from ZeniMax on a USB storage device, as well as the entire source code to RAGE and the id tech® 5 engine —which Carmack uploaded to his Oculus computer;

This is geared towards Oculus which was purchased by Facebook a few years back.

I wonder what happens to the profits FB/Oculus made off of their stolen technology? Zenimax is the parent company of Bethesda who I have massive respect for as a gamer.

I do stuff with computers and code (I'll leave it at that) so this is a pretty big deal in that world. Almost all VR tech (including Sony's) is essentially borrowed from Oculus. Developers certainly won't continue to promote a stolen tech, either.

Suckerburg bought stolen technology, probably unbeknownst to him at the time, but promoted and sold said stolen tech. Lol.

Glad this is settled. Now maybe Zen can stop trying to exclude Oculus from their stuff and work closer..and Oculus can produce more stuff to try and make up for their loss.

-oculus owner

a reply to: xuenchen

Its tough to break old habits.

Zuckerberg stole Facebook from the Winklevoss brothers and Divya Narendra.

Why stop there?

originally posted by: gladtobehere
a reply to: xuenchen

Its tough to break old habits.

Zuckerberg stole Facebook from the Winklevoss brothers and Divya Narendra.

Why stop there?

It was Carmack who stole the code, and it happened before Zuckerberg bought Oculus for 2bn.

I think that Zuckerberg got away pretty cheap here, given that Zenimax sued for 6bn.

originally posted by: Tardacus

ZeniMax sued Oculus for allegedly stealing its intellectual property. The company claimed Oculus founder Palmer Luckey "commercially exploited" Zenimax computer code and trade secrets in order to develop its products. It also said Oculus' VR device Oculus Rift was "primitive" until John Carmack, Oculus chief technology officer and founder of a company owned by ZeniMax, improved on the device using his knowledge from his previous work as a ZeniMax employee.

so, basically he was just following in bill gates footsteps.

Actually, this is how zuckerberg started facebook also, stealing someone elses intellectual property...

The guy is a thief...

Facebook might be ordered to pay, but they won't.

They will appeal the verdict, and keep appealing until their opponent runs out of cash to keep going.

Then facebook will win by default, and request an order for their opponent to pay their legal costs.

Zenimax will be forced into bankruptcy, and buried.