Oculus VR responds to ZeniMax's accusations of technology theft

As you may have heard last week, ZeniMax Media has gone on the offensive against VR tech company Oculus VR and its recent acquirer Facebook, claiming former employee John Carmack stole intellectual property from them that was allegedly used to develop the Oculus Rift gaming headset.

To Oculus, the claims are a load of hogwash, and today the company told the gaming public as much, releasing a statement in which it said the following: “We are disappointed but not surprised by ZeniMax’s actions and we will prove that all of its claims are false.”

Not stopping there, Oculus then listed off a number of key points on the issue, which are:

There is not a line of ZeniMax code or any of its technology in any Oculus products.

John Carmack did not take any intellectual property from ZeniMax.

ZeniMax has misstated the purposes and language of the ZeniMax non-disclosure agreement that Palmer Luckey signed.

A key reason that John permanently left ZeniMax in August of 2013 was that ZeniMax prevented John from working on VR, and stopped investing in VR games across the company.

ZeniMax canceled VR support for Doom 3 BFG when Oculus refused ZeniMax’s demands for a non-dilutable equity stake in Oculus.

ZeniMax did not pursue claims against Oculus for IP or technology, ZeniMax has never contributed any IP or technology to Oculus, and only after the Facebook deal was announced has ZeniMax now made these claims through its lawyers.

Despite the fact that the full source code for the Oculus SDK is available online (developer.oculusvr.com), ZeniMax has never identified any ‘stolen’ code or technology.

According to ZeniMax’s claims, they own “the proprietary technology and know-how” Carmack supposedly contributed to the Oculus Rift while he was still a ZeniMax employee. “Oculus has used and exploited ZeniMax's technology and intellectual property without authorization, compensation or credit to ZeniMax,” the company said.

To which, Carmack responded by tweeting, "No work I have ever done has been patented. Zenimax owns the code that I wrote, but they don't own VR."

Source: IGN

Tags: Oculus VR, ZeniMax Media, responds, accusations, technology, theft, Video Game News

Peter Grimm

A writer, journalist, and aspiring storyteller, Peter Grimm has been gaming since the days of the Nintendo 64, and reporting on the goings-on in the World of Gaming since late 2011. His base of writing operations is located within the void between Here and There, or so he would have you think.

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