Home Archive Oculus Accused of Intellectual Property Theft by ZeniMax

Oculus Accused of Intellectual Property Theft by ZeniMax

by GH Staff

[promo title=”How much of ZeniMax did Carmack Bring to Oculus?”][/promo]

John Carmack, Chief Technology Officer of Oculus, is being accused by his previous employer ZeniMax of stealing intellectual property and using it in Oculus. This comes only days after the announcement of Oculus being sold to Facebook for a Sturdy $2 billion.

John Carmack has been working with Oculus since the early start of the company. He was the first developer who actually integrated the Rift into a game back when it was just a prototype. On August 6 2013 John Carmack left his cozy seat at id Software to work for Oculus instead. Oculus states 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.”

Before Oculus was even a company, Palmer Luckey signed a non disclosure agreement with ZeniMax in order to use a virtual reality test-bed and for the assistance of John Carmack. ZeniMax is claiming that by the terms of this agreement, not just code but any and all contributions or advice that John Carmack gave Oculus while still an employee of ZeniMax is now their property. Oculus states “ZeniMax has misstated the purposes and language of the ZeniMax non-disclosure agreement that Palmer Luckey signed”. I doubt they expected that they would have to use it to try and get back what they poured into Oculus. It appears as though John Carmack wasn’t the only employee ZeniMax had on the project, some of who also decided to join Oculus when the two companies parted ways. It seems like ZeniMax is saying that the Oculus project went from a backyard experiment to a fully functional gaming apparatus that won best of CES 2012, 2013 and 2014 thanks to the work of ZeniMax employees.

Oculus stated :

  • “There is not a line of Zenimax code or any of its technology in any Oculus products.”
  • “Zenimax canceled VR support for Doom 3 BFG when Oculus refused Zenimax’s demands for a non-dilutable equity stake in Oculus.”
  • “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.”

It seems ZeniMax was left high and dry after exerting a large amount of resources and assets on the Oculus project and has nothing to show for it. Moreover they lost John Carmack who left their company completely in order to continue working with Oculus. If you ask me, this looks more like a cry for revenge after licking their wounds. Fact is fact – If it wasn’t for John Carmack and Zenimax, Oculus probably wouldn’t have gotten as far as they have as quick as they have. Oculus has this to say:

  • “We are disappointed, but not surprised by Zenimax’s actions and we will prove that all of its claims are false”

One of the things that is most apparent is ZeniMax’s sudden interest right after a deal with Facebook was announced to buy Oculus for a hefty sum of $2 billion. Whether this has some legal grounds or not remains to be seen. They sure picked the right time to make it look suspicious. Of course if they did help develop a significant portion of Oculus and the experts can find some form or another of intellectual property belonging to ZeniMax, It could look bad for the future of Oculus. Might even become Zenculus. Is it regarded as intellectual property theft if you pick someone’s brain? Oculus states:

  • “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.”

I’m just wondering why was there no contract stating the level of ZeniMax’s involvement and some agreement to an ultimate goal. Did ZeniMax intend to buy a chunk of Oculus from the start, or did they just decide half way in? “O wait this is actually going somewhere!” I call Dibs. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to state from the start “Hey we give you John Carmack and his team, and in return you give us 50% of Oculus?” No, I bet Oculus knew what they were getting into from the start and made a deal with John Carmack to join Oculus once ZeniMax is out of the picture. If that is the case they could prepare beforehand and make sure ZeniMax couldn’t point a finger at any of their code or technology to say ” That’s Mine!”. I’m just wondering, How much bigger was the offer from Facebook than that of ZeniMax?