The war of words continues between ZeniMax and Oculus in the wake of a $500 million mixed verdict issued yesterday by a Texas jury.
Earlier today Oculus CTO John Carmack noted on Facebook “the internet would have viciously mocked the analysis” of an expert witness ZeniMax called in the case whose testimony is under seal. “I still have a level of morbid curiosity about the several hundred-page report.”
This is a lot cooler than it looks — Palmer Luckey’s 90+ FOV HMD, soon to be available as a cheap kit. pic.twitter.com/0DdD8KLY
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) May 17, 2012
ZeniMax first publicly accused Oculus of theft of its technology in 2014, shortly after the announcement that Facebook was to acquire the startup for billions. ZeniMax alleged the Rift VR headset was built using its own technology and that Carmack, formerly of ZeniMax-owned id Software, had used its resources to offer essential help in developing the Rift.
“I never tried to hide or wipe any evidence, and all of my data is accounted for, contrary to some stories being spread,” Carmack wrote.
Now ZeniMax, which threatened an injunction to stop Oculus from using its purported code, has issued a statement responding to the Doom developer:
In addition to expert testimony finding both literal and non-literal copying, Oculus programmers themselves admitted using ZeniMax’s copyrighted code (one saying he cut and pasted it into the Oculus SDK), and Brendan Iribe, in writing, requested a license for the “source code shared by Carmack” they needed for the Oculus Rift. Not surprisingly, the jury found ZeniMax code copyrights were infringed. The Oculus Rift was built on a foundation of ZeniMax technology.
As for the denial of wiping, the Court’s independent expert found 92% of Carmack’s hard drive was wiped—all data was permanently destroyed, right after Carmack got notice of the lawsuit, and that his affidavit denying the wiping was false.
We will of course continue to follow the situation. Oculus has vowed an appeal.
