Following the $500 million verdict that ZeniMax Media achieved in its case against Facebook-owned VR company, Oculus, ZeniMax (plaintiff) has officially filed a new complaint with a demand for a jury trial against Samsung (defendant).
This new complaint filed on Friday, May 12th, 2017 is based off of the verdict from the Oculus trial, alleging that since Samsung’s Gear VR is powered by Oculus, it is “based upon ZeniMax’s intellectual property and includes information obtained by Samsung from Oculus, Luckey, and Carmack in violation of the NDA, ZeniMax’s copyrights, and Carmack’s employment agreement.”
The complaint goes on to say that “Samsung has used, and continues to utilize, ZeniMax’s VR technology (or derivatives thereof) that was misappropriated by Oculus.” Due to the public nature of the allegations, trial, and verdict, ZeniMax reasons that Samsung knows full-well that its Gear VR is at least partially based on ZeniMax’s VR technology.
In the Oculus trial several key members from Oculus and Facebook were required to testify, including Oculus co-founder and former employee Palmer Luckey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and id (a ZeniMax-owned company) co-founder and current Oculus CTO, John Carmack.
According to ZeniMax, Samsung “stands to realize substantial value as a result of its use of ZeniMax’s misappropriated intellectual property and information obtained by Samsung from Oculus, Luckey, and Carmack in violation of the NDA and Carmack’s employment agreement.”
This complaint ultimately seeks damages and injunctive relief that will “fairly and fully compensate” the company as a result.
