Following a prominent lawsuit between ZeniMax and Facebook/Oculus which resulted in a $500 million award to ZeniMax, the company is now seeking an injunction to prevent Oculus from continuing to use code that was found by the jury to infringe upon ZeniMax’s copyright.

According to a report by Reuters, ZeniMax filed papers on Thursday, at the same court where the early 2017 trial was held, which seek an injunction that would prevent distribution of the VR code that was found to infringe on ZeniMax’s copyright. According to the filing, ZeniMax’s proposed injunction would include core software that makes the Oculus ecosystem work, including the company’s PC SDK for Rift and Mobile SDK for Gear VR:

Defendant Oculus is permanently enjoined, on a worldwide basis, from using, marketing, selling, distributing, modifying, servicing, copying, or offering for sale or license any products, in whole or in part, that utilize in any form or for any purpose any of the Copyrighted Materials, including but not limited to (i) system software for Oculus PC (including the Oculus PC SDK); (ii) system software for Oculus Mobile (including the Oculus Mobile SDK); (iii) Oculus integration with the Epic Games Unreal Engine; and (iv) Oculus integration with the Unity Technologies Unity Game Engine.

The filing also appears to indicate that ZeniMax wants the original campaign video for the 2012 Oculus Kickstarter to be barred from use, which includes footage of John Carmack, a key figure in the lawsuit, demonstrating a very early Rift prototype at E3 2012.

The company argues that the $500 million (of a requested $4 billion) in damages that the court awarded ZeniMax is “insufficient to remedy” the damages, and that precedent shows that an injunction is the proper motion when copyright infringement has been established.

Speaking to Reuters, Mark Romeo, an intellectual property lawyer not involved in the case, said the injunction, if granted, would put an “incredible amount of pressure on Facebook to enter into some sort of settlement.”

A spokesperson for Oculus said the company was continuing with its plan to appeal the original judgement, which the spokesperson called “legally flawed and factually unwarranted,” according to the Reuters report.

SEE ALSO
Experts Share 6 Legal Considerations to Know Before Jumping into the VR/AR Industry

The initial lawsuit stemmed from (among other claims) Oculus’ alleged use of code developed by John Carmack, who was at the time an employee of Id Software, a subsidiary of ZeniMax. Carmack eventually joined Oculus as the company’s Chief Technical Officer. The lawsuit further alleged breaches of a non-disclosure agreement between Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and Id Software. For more, see this analysis on the lawsuits $500 million verdict.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • DrakeDoesn’tWrite

    Nothing will happen Facebook needs to fallback. If they shut up this will go away. Just pay what you owe.

  • Me

    If you consider the money at play here, I guess it’s expected that both parties will try to get the most out of this situation.

    I still wonder if there’s anything good that will come out from this for the consumer. I mean, I hate all that Oculus/Facebook nonsense (privacy, exclusivity, shady actions by shady persons and so on), but I also know there are some dedicated persons in their labs doing their best to invent the VR we all expect.

    If it weren’t for the FB money I guess all these geniuses would have been working elsewhere long ago, no ?

    • ShiftyInc

      If Facebook was not involved here, then Oculus as a company would already be dead in the water. And Zenimax pretty much would have killed the VR market with a single lawsuit. (cause they are not interested in any VR stuff, they only want to see money) But right now this will end in two ways, either they settle or their injunction is dismissed.

      • Me

        I’m not sure that if you kill Oculus automatically means killing the VR market. Valve, HTC, Microsoft and Google would still be here and considering the huge investments media companies have already made, there’s no way all of this would just go away. I think the cards would just be redistributed.

        • ShiftyInc

          If any of the two major VR companies would disappear now i.e HTC Vive or Oculus. that would be a major blow to the VR market. while it might not be gone right away. it will be extremely hard to recover from it. Microsoft and Google are really small still in this market. But more so as a developer you would think twice to put so much time and effort in a VR product, if one of the big companies would just disappear like that.

          • Me

            Well I disagree because I think that Valve/HTC strategy is so different from Oculus: while Oculus relies on only two products, the Rift and the Gear VR, the Steam VR/ environment is open an not brand or product dependant, which means it’s not tied up to any potential product/company fail. Oh, and we forgot one major actor… Sony and the PSVR !

          • ShiftyInc

            Well i have not heard anything from Sony about PSVR in a while. Seems that is going the way of the Vita.

          • Me

            Mmmh, that’s probably because of the distribution model and quality control: you will never see experimental and early access stuff on the playstation, and Oculus basically stole all the exclusivity from the ususal suspects working with Sony, like Naughty Dog. That means their line-up will take more time to grow, but considering the volume they sold, it’s a bit early to burry the PSVR. Plus they will probably drop the price a bit, and it will become a very compelling product.
            Ah, and most of the Oculus exclusivities are time-based, so I think taht at some point you will find all these titles on the PSVR too.

          • ShiftyInc

            You must not have visited the Playstation store in a while then, cause as of late that place has been swapped with the stuff that was only on steam via greenlight. Those high standards have come and gone on there. Those game seeing a release on steam is more likely then a PSVR release, seeing that most of these games use mechanics that the PSVR cannot do.

          • Me

            You’re probably right, I guess we’ll see.

          • revel911

            I think the point is that adding FB adds a potential social element which increases potential use cases and long term adoption rates.

          • DougP

            Re: “FB adds a potential social element ”
            VR Farmville pop-up inside VR …ugh?!

          • JMM21

            You forgot that Oculus is partnered w/ Xbox, Microsoft and Samsung.

          • DM

            But Steam/Valve get a lot of VR sales from Oculus users too, if the Oculus HMD was discontinued that would be a big revenue drop. I can imagine a lot of VR devs deciding to look at other ways of making money if that happened.

        • Get Schwifty!

          If Oculus disappeared (and its market) it would be a serious blow to VR, if for no other reason than I believe there is actually greater commitment to VR over a long period from within the Facebook/Oculus camp than in HTC despite their current advantage in the market with Lighthouse and an earlier, more complete release. Yes, if they went down (which they won’t), people seeking it would redistribute, but it would be significant setback in the mobile space, which could actually dampen VR for a time as the outside public would interpret it as a market leader (and they are a leader) basically quit the business, regardless of the reason.

          • Javed Asghar

            Ok now am sure, he somehow makes his money through Facebook/Oculus – every single line he types reeks of it.

          • Javed Asghar

            You don’t see OpenVR Guys doing the same guys – just big corporates can afford guys like him to sign-up to VR sites and keep the PR going – says a lot for the common man.

        • DM

          Oculus has a decent market. If Zeni somehow kill off Oculus and brick my investment I’m certainly not going to go out and spend £900 on a VIVE setup, and I won’t get PSVR either, and I won’t be buying any more VR games.

          Quite sure a lot of other Oculus users are in the same situation. Zeni are either being the biggest dicks in the world right now, or just fishing for more money.

          IMO they should fuck off and accept the money they got so far.

          • Javed Asghar

            No you are alone – I have both and will simply use the rift for to-fit purposes. I will buy vive again another one or any OpenVR one none of this should have been locked in the first place. Support open platforms if you truly want VR to succeed and not corporates with their employees here making you fight brand wars.

  • rene

    If I was Zuckerberg, I´d just buy Zenimax :) Then he´d have big studionames for VR development at hand.

    • revel911

      And fire everybody.

      • ZenInsight

        lol

      • Scott C

        Nah, just the top brass. The folks working on games are probably fine.

    • Get Schwifty!

      Don’t laugh, that might actually be the stratagem in mind here….

    • DougP

      After $3B down-the-toilet & lackluster sales… I doubt shareholders would like more “good money after bad”.

      • Scott C

        How lackluster would the sales be if Fallout and Elder Scrolls were now exclusive franchises?

        • silvaring

          Oculus only gained marketshare because they gave free cv1s to original kick starter backers, lest we forget.

      • Get Schwifty!

        Lackluster sales? You guys live in your own world…. Oculus easily has 30-40% of the market on the PC side and kicks the door off on mobile… to be honest BOTH platforms have lackluster sales at this stage if you want to put it in that light. Any company is considered doing well if they hold even 15% of the market, to hold 30% or higher is not “lackluster” relatively speaking… you guys really need to educate yourselves on what it means to be a player in the consumer market.

        • DougP

          Re: “Lackluster sales? You guys live in your own world…. ”

          And you write:
          “BOTH platforms have lackluster sales”
          So you agree with me?

          You’re so caught-up in being a Facebook apologist that you disagree & then agree in same reply?

          Re: “Any company is considered doing well if they hold even 15% of the market”
          No, a company is considered doing well when they are MAKING A PROFIT.

          Are you actually claiming Facebook is anywhere near turning a profit on the well over $3B spent (that’s just purchase+Zenimax… not counting dev/marketing/production costs).

          Seriously I wish you’d just admit that you work for Facebook’s PR / damage control department & stop with these pathetic mental gymnastics where you contradict yourself.

    • James Friedman

      BINGO!

  • iThinkMyCatIsAFlea

    Fingers crossed ZeniMax stop Oculus sales.

    Don’t support Oculus. Google Oculus Trump for more info.

    • Walextheone

      What’s up with all the hate dude? Why work up so much high blood pressure over nothing. You sound like religious fanatic over some vr tech?

      instead go out and enjoy life man. Get some air and enjoy the sunshine..

      • Get Schwifty!

        Tin foil hat activist…. in other words, there are the good guys (who never do wrong) and the bad guys (who never do good)…. an example of the current critical thinking impaired political ideology and reactions that are the output of public education systems throughout the West. A vast web of dark shadowy people looking to hurt the little guy due to some conspiracy of egotistical elites…. instead of what it really is, which is typical corporate activity across the board.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Fingers crossed you go jump off a roof…… Man, you’re a real moron.. It was Palmer not Oculus who donated some money to a firm that made meme’s he thought were funny.. oh oh, because those meme’s where pro-trump it’s a bad thing… get real, it’s not like Clinton was any better.. I’m not saying Trump is doing a good job, but I also understand some of his decisions, let’s not forget that a lot of people are ripping everything he does out of context, so it seems some stuff looks bad, but if you actually just dive into it deeper you’ll see that it actually was a good decision (and not relying on the anti-trump media).. Not saying Trump should get his act together and be more professional and not act like a small child…

      It looks like you’re a big fan of valve, but please read up on Gabe Newell, and you’ll see he also is a big asshole and not a nice person..

      And if you’re pro Zenimax, than you should really spend some time diving into their history of misconduct towards people..

      • DougP

        Re: “It was Palmer not Oculus who donated some money”
        Ummm…. Peter Thiel is Facebook.

        • Get Schwifty!

          Regardless.

    • DM

      Fuck off already.

  • Muddy

    The Karma Train approaches and after all the lies and bad press Oculus have been churning out since launch it’s pretty hard to feel sorry for them. And will it really be that bad for the industry? I don’t think so, the technology has demonstrated too much potential for investment to just stop if Oculus disappears. VR will go on with or without them and their facebook money.

    • Get Schwifty!

      Palmer before Facebook’s acquisition wanted a more open access; this was changed by Facebook to a more walled garden, lie or change in approach under different management? Palmer, as a private citizen makes a donation to a cause a minority of people in the US are concerned with, this was not Oculus but given our current intrusive political ideology we punish everyone associated with someone to try make them fall in line.

      As an aside, I think you need to read up on Karma, it doesn’t work the way you think it does. The reality also is, sooner or later, HTC with the Vive is going to have a cock-up, it always happens. The golden state only last so long, as all things go in cycles.

      • iThinkMyCatIsAFlea

        Palmer, after befriending Milo Yiannopoulos, donated to an alt-right pro-Trump group. Just Google Oculus Trump.

        The people concerned about the alt-right are hardly a minority Schwifty.

        • Get Schwifty!

          They are, you may not think that, but they are. Likewise a lot of people are concerned about the various far left groups which in the end seek to stifle political “dissension” by effectively making any opposition illegal. Either end of the spectrum effectively seeks to limit political expression and curtail your rights to an opinion if it is not endorsed by a controlling group…. your tactic falls right in line with it.

          You still act like this information about Palmer and Milo is some revelation, it is not, everyone who frequents these boards is aware of it and it was hashed out months ago. Why you suddenly showed up harping on it this late in the game is the question. I am beginning to wonder if you might not be a friend of “Drive-Bye” Kent’s, who also is a clear Oculus hater and abuses them somewhat due to the superficial link with Trump. I am sure no one who worked for HTC or any of the VIve owners ever voted or supported Trump right? Please…

        • DougP

          Facebook & politics –
          It’s not just Palmer that a lot of people were upset about.
          Let’s not forget Peter Thiel.

        • JMM21

          who cares…I sure don’t….I didnt vote for either but I don’t bash ppl that wanted to vote for either party. WTF happened to ppl being able to spend their money how they want. Jealous that you don’t have the money to spend like that to w/e group you like? This was SUPPOSED to be able the suit not crap that has NOTHING to do w/ it…

        • DM

          I dont care a shit about the political affiliations of anybody. You however spam EVERY comments section with news thats old, and nobody cares. America voted in the president you are complaining about – go and pester them about it.

      • Muddy

        The point I was trying to make is that I don’t believe that VR can’t survive without Oculus. Why you chose to focus on Palmer I have no idea, I didn’t mention him at all, nor did I mention the Vive.

        What are your thoughts on VR’s survival without Oculus?

        • Get Schwifty!

          I mentioned him because your post clearly tied “bad press” in which almost everyone attribute to two things, the move on exclusives and Palmer’s donation. If that is not the case, I am not sure what you would be referring to.

          As I said above, I am sure VR would “survive”, much like a patient survives losing their right arm, but they will be hobbled for a time until they adapt. The biggest loss would be IMNSHO that the public (which outside of these forums doesn’t really give a hoot about any of the things people bitch about here) sees a major name in mobile VR suddenly leave the market, which doesn’t look good and telegraphs a message that VR is failing. The other loss would be support from a seriously funded backer, Facebook. From all accounts Oculus and Facebook (namely Zuckerberg) are seriously committed, to the point I think even without shareholder support they will be more than adequately funded and there is the conviction it is a market they must succeed in to stay relevant, though they don’t feel it as strongly as HTC.

          If anything, a real shareholder revolt (which is unlikely) would mean a spin-off off Oculus, which could be a good thing in the long run in some ways but their backing would be less… “elastic” :)

          • Muddy

            Fair assumption, however I hadn’t even thought about Palmer at the time (who does these days). Actually, foremost in my mind when I used the term “bad press” was the disastrous roll out of the Rift at launch, the DRM fiasco and of course, as you mentioned, exclusivity.

            Your suppositions regarding VR without Oculus are very well considered, I very much enjoyed reading it and damned if I could find anything to debate you on! You are right, Oculus suddenly leaving the market would definitely telegraph a message to the wider consumer that VR is failing. I think you are probably right about Zuckerburg’s commitment to VR as well, with or without shareholders, he’ll continue to fund it no matter the outcome of events as they unfold over the next few months.

            I still stand by my original statement. Virtual Reality has too much potential now to be stopped by the exit of Oculus or any one of the three main players in the race. Momentum may suffer for sure but ultimately I think this is going to be much bigger than a three horse race.

      • DougP

        Re: “we punish everyone associated with someone to try make them fall in line”
        Wow – don’t believe in freedom of speech?

        • Get Schwifty!

          No offense, but please reread my post and meditate on exactly what I said…. clearly you took what I said in a 180 degree turn from what it clearly states…

          • DougP

            My point is that people are allowed to “vote with their dollars”. Period. End of story.
            That’s *freedom*. Heck the courts in the US ruled that “money is speech”.

            So when someone is “exercising speech” they are NOT “punishing someone” per se they are making a statement by choosing to spend their money elsewhere.
            It’s the same when people (typically consumers) might ask for an exec at a company to be removed.
            That exec had the right to say what they want (example donating to some cause huge sums), but has not *right* against consequences (/backlash).
            By saying people shouldn’t be “punishing” you’re saying they don’t have the freedom to *speak* (money=speech) & express themselves = “people shouldn’t be expressing themselves against those they disagree with”.

  • CURTROCK

    Zenimax needs to fuck off. They didn’t want to participate in the VR revolution. Fine. They got their $500 million settlement. Fine. Now, get out of the way and let the VR industry mature. Carmack allegedly used some code he wrote while working for Zenimax. They got $500 million. That’s not enough? You have to try to hobble the Rift? Who is the greedy evil corporate scum now? I am a Rift owner, and now you are fucking with MY investment. And to all the Oculus/FB haters, you can fuck off too. Disliking a company is one thing. Rooting for its failure and all the ramifications of THAT, is quite another.

    • iThinkMyCatIsAFlea

      Contact Oculus. Tell them that you want a refund. Get refund. Buy the Vive.

      • CURTROCK

        I refer you to my previous statement: re: Fuck Off.

        • iThinkMyCatIsAFlea

          Your investment will soon be bricked as Oculus stole code it uses, so contact Oculus and get a refund. That’s what I would do if I were you.

          • Get Schwifty!

            Ah, the tin foil hat contingent… please, do go on…. no doubt that in a smoky room sometime Trump instigated the whole thing with Palmer and Carmack as they sacrificed kittens to the God of Profit…

          • revel911

            With the amount of money FB has, they will replace the code before a lawsuit even goes through.

          • SandmaN

            Thing is there is no code to replace as none of it comes from Zenimax/id Software. Read the entire breakdown of the lawsuit. An appeal is coming soon from Facebook/Oculus so nothing to see here folks, move along and enjoy your respective headsets (or both) and revel in the fact that the future of VR is here!

          • JMM21

            Oculus didnt steal anything…..learn to read and do some research before start typing.

        • revel911

          I don’t know why people think us Rift users would want a Vive. If I wanted a Vive, I would have gotten a Vive. It fits like shit, looks like shit, and I would take my Touch controllers over that stupid wand any day of the week.

      • Get Schwifty!

        Yes, let’s only support one player in the industry to create an effective monopoly and stifle innovation…. you are wise beyond your years….

      • Karl

        He shouldn’t be forced to downgrade to a Vive just because of Zenimax.

    • Ben

      Even though I hate FB for censorship, I still feel sorry for Oculus and like Palmer and Carmack, they started this current VR wave. I’ll never buy another Zenimax game again.

      • Mark Lapasa

        I will probably never buy a Zenimax product again but if they continue to get million/billion dollar awards in court, they probably would care less.

        • JMM21

          Well that is how they make fast cash…this isn’t the 1st time they have went to court to sue someone.

      • dogtato

        Agreed, my interest in Fallout 4 takes a big drop every time Zenimax makes a court filing.

    • Get Schwifty!

      I think what they are doing now is trying to up the ante to get a licensing fee…. people forget that before the trial FB/Oculus approached them on this, and for whatever reason Zenimax chose not too engage. I think this is a leveraging tactic to try to get this going again as a revenue stream for Zenimax with licensing fees much higher.

      Going out to even stop the campaign video from 2012 is now just ridiculous IMNSHO, and is at this point just plain vindictiveness on Zenimax part.

    • victor

      Don’t worry, the VR technology is now out in the world and other manufacturers (like HTC and more coming) will continue the rolling the ball!
      Nothing can stop technology….even greedy-assed companies and lawyers

      • Javed Asghar

        True – Palmer also worked with Valve don’t forget that and there were issues there are well. People just pretend here that they want the best for VR, well if its going to happen it will chill and declare openly that you are oculust/facebook fanboy and all i read from them is “facebook behind it, they got ton of money, investors don’t care” well if the core is so closely tied to other people’s work – it is a problem. And you will soon see, exclusives and all that money being pumped into the ecosystem and then more going out in lawsuits doesn’t make it a great business no matter how hard facebook is trying to sell it.

        VR will make it though – AR even more once apple enters the game with “simply works” designs. And this is more thanks to any dev/manufacturer that is following the open standards – not this lock everything, dont let vive run on our store, keep exclusives, oh wait too much drama let vive run through a hack – its ok keep throwing money bs.

        It is true that Palmer started researching and putting resources together for this new wave – but once again it was not all his work – valve and now zennimax and who knows what in future will prove this.

        If you truly want the best for VR – chill and think minus the fanboyisim. What you bought this year doesn’t mean you will stick to just that brand – well now that Facebook didnt get its way and OpenVR lives.

    • RipVoid

      Its a company with serious problems. I do hope they survive and keep pumping money into VR but at some point the shareholders will have had enough. For all its short comings Oculus IP does have value and it should survive even if the company doesn’t.

      • Get Schwifty!

        Trust me, they aren’t about to go down, shareholders not withstanding. I am sure you would have said the same about Volkswagen or any other of dozens of companies that have had lawsuits early in their histories.

        • RipVoid

          No, Volkswagen is an established company with many assets and income streams. Oculus isn’t. I’ve noticed your knowledge about technology is suspect and your knowledge about business is worse.

          And trust you? This from the guy that owns a Rift that doesn’t work but continues to promote it? Your credibility is approaching zero.

          • Javed Asghar

            He is one of the biggest Oculus/Facebook fan boys here – most of his arguments are basically – but they got a ton of money to throw.

  • Get Schwifty!

    Believe it or not, this could be the single best thing to happen to Oculus. They are not going to want another trial nor spend money for licensing fees to Zenimax if they can help it, and they certainly don’t want to try to go through life with a blood sucker (legally correct or not) hanging off their neck.

    if they were wise, and given some of the current issues for some of the owning population with Constellation tracking, they have an opportunity to justify a total revamp of the Oculus hardware ecosystem for a 2.0 release and turn their public relations issues (deserved or not in some cases) around. I doubt they will do it, but it’s possible if Zenimax keeps grinding on them. Take what they know now and move on in a different direction with a different approach and new code, and people will see them in a different light.

    • Nairobi

      So you are saying that it’s good for Oculus because they can start from scratch and improve? Do you have any idea how much of an enormous waste of money that is? That is throwing away the years they have put into this, the kickstarter, and the thousands of engineer man hours. That’s financial suicide and an end to investor interest. Don’t be such a defeatist.

      • Get Schwifty!

        Not throwing away their experience or their position, but a chance to grow in a new direction, and that is the point. Just saying if they extract and divorce themselves from anything to do with Zenimax code, etc. it gives them the ability to make a change in a way that the market doesn’t normally allow for. Not defeatist at all, its a golden opportunity to turn things around and frankly erase a lot of bad press as people clearly like Zenimax even less.

        • Nairobi

          That still doesn’t get rid of the fact that it is financial suicide. No investor would take Facebook seriously for VR if they decided to “restart”.

          • Get Schwifty!

            How so? we are talking code, not ditching the headsets and sensors and games…. its just code that needs to be replaced…. not sure why you think this would be so financially impossible… please explain. And companies “restart” in a market all the time, look at Motorola that had a good place in the phone market, fell from grace and is attempting to reintroduce itself… car companies are notorious for reinventing themselves… hell IBM moved from being a big iron vendor to a consulting services vendor….

            The reality is Facebook IS the investor… there is no real need to satisfy any outside investors, not sure why you think that is an issue in this case. They are a company with a market cap of … now meditate on this…. Four hundred billion dollars…. do you honestly think a suit of 500 million (which is likely going to be less in real payout) is a real concern for them? This is less than 0.013% of their cap, it barely shows up in the ledgers… this is the point most of the posters here are utterly missing…. and should be grateful in a way that a company with such deep pockets is funding and committed to VR instead of acting like a bunch of crying twits over a few exclusives and a meaningless political donation by a member of the company…

    • ZenInsight

      Pastebin the source code

    • Caven

      This is something Oculus ideally would have started doing the moment they were first notified of the lawsuit. Nothing takes the teeth out of an injunction like preemptively ensuring compliance. And starting at the beginning of the lawsuit instead of at the end means not having to rush through the process.

      • Get Schwifty!

        Well, we are talking Oculus and Facebook, and their egos are pretty big they might have thought it was a slam dunk in their favor, and it’s entirely possible the legal team at Facebook is a bit unprepared for the hardware questions that surround Oculus compared to Facebook code.

  • Justos

    Zenimax will see 0$ from me in my lifetime.

    • Martin Bammes

      are you sure about that? They also manage the intellectual property of Bethesda Studios.

      • Justos

        Positive. Im an MMO gamer at heart and their MMO is trash (Elder scrolls online). Their single player games are more hype than fun and ive played them all without buying them (friends buy it and dump within a week. more hype than fun)

        • DougP

          Umm…Ok, so you don’t like the studio & weren’t going to spend money on their products anyways. No loss here.

          • DM

            Oh no, someone backed up why they won’t spend money with Zeni and you got upset. Do Zeni pay you to say this stuff?

            I’m also well on the way to avoiding Zeni if they carry on like this.

          • DougP

            I literally wrote:
            “Umm…Ok” & “No loss here”
            And….you were *triggered* enough to reply saying that I was “upset”? Reading comprehension issues? Perhaps English isn’t your first language?

            This person said – they don’t like Zeni’s types of games & doesn’t buy their games…. hence = “no loss”.

  • OgreTactics

    This should be simple in a sane economical system: unless Zeni-Max can provide to the market the same or better use of these SDK and algorithms, there shouldn’t be a question that they need to go fuck themselves.

    Imagine if in any industry whatsoever, a constructor had manage to invent, develop and distribute a revolutionary product (not just tech) be it transport, medicins or app, and for some dubious unused patent that should never have been patentable in the first place another worthless scum corporation wanted to try to backtrack and prevent the societal impact of a whole market already developed by working people without proving 10% of the same value in return?

    This should never in any case fly.

    • Gus Bisbal

      And your a paid consultant? Your a kid. Zeni-Max have made a play. This has nothing to do with anything other than the law and appealing to the logic of a court. It has nothing to do with economy, market, technology, SDK Blah Blah Blah…Pay attention. This has to do with a company that missed the boat and has enough leverage of make enormous amounts of money from the company that didn’t miss the boat. This has nothing to do with VR. It might as well be Bio-tech. This is a strategic play about money and the power to control it. Oh and the patent BS you mentioned. Thats legal. 100% legal. Thats the purpose of patents. Thats actually the function of patents. You just declared that patents shouldn’t exist. Thats fine but it doesn’t show a great connection with reality, because they do exist and you have to deal with them not complain about them.

      • OgreTactics

        I am a paid conception/marketing/trend consultant, I own patents that I licence, not a fucking copyright patent lawyer nor a crook thieve parasite.

        You sound like the kind of person who could try and rationalise any thing from “government stole compulsory public taxes to pay-out bank debt” to “jewish people merited to be deported”, yes a free Godwin point for you.

        Because that’s legal, people like you I swear…Let me guess you work in finance?

  • Andrew Goetz

    WOOHOOO GO ZENIMAX

    • Get Schwifty!

      And your contribution to the discussion is exactly what?

      • JMM21

        the picture that someone actually married him…

        • Get Schwifty!

          That is actually funny :)

    • ra51

      Why…?

  • Foreign Devil

    Zenimax getting very greedy. .not satisfied with their payout. . this won’t end well for them.

    • Mike

      Maybe Zenimax is trying to beome IOI (from Ready Player One).

    • Scott C

      Yeah, if they’d shut up and take the payout, it would be an instant 20% bump to their valuation. But no, the work Carmack did on their nonexistant VR project is worth more than 20% of the rest of their IPs combined.

      What a load of crap.

  • DougP

    “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

    Justice is & will be served – Go Zenimax!

    • Get Schwifty!

      All this hate over exclusives? My you guys are petty to say the least….

      This is a bit like rooting for the Devil to win over a sinner….. and calling it Justice to boot. Just wait, eventually HTC will be caught doing something shady one day, it happens to all proliferate businesses,,, curious how the Vive fanboy contingent on here responds on that day.

      • DougP

        Re: “All this hate over exclusives? My you guys are petty to say the least….”

        WTF?!

        Does Facebook PAY YOU to post this BS?!
        Where did I say ANYTHING about exclusives?
        YOU GUYS – the Facebook apologists (or …as I’m more suspect – FB employees!) … post this crazy talk.

        I specifically complimented that the US justice system did what it’s supposed to do – justice was served by a court of law.
        Now, instead of celebrating that – you Facebook (/Zuckerg/Luckey/Carmack/whomever?) apologists think that since you’re such big fans of theirs, your duty is to blast the courts for doing their jobs?
        Seriously?!

        Or are you claiming that you have more legal knowledge & experience than those at the court who heard & ruled on this case? Arrogant! And Disrespectful of the courts.

        Don’t go projecting your Facebook apologist “the court ruled this way because people don’t like exclusives” crazy talk.

        • DM

          Triggered much? Cheerleading for Zeni who are being clearly anti-consumer here doesn’t paint you in a great light.

          • DougP

            It’s you Facebook-fanbois who are triggered by this.

            Funny how you reply to ME, after “Get Schwifty!” goes off on a rant & ramble “exlcusive” & “hate” when all I’d posted was:
            1) Martin Luther King Jr quote
            2) Single sentence stating I thought justice was served

            “Get Schwifty!” was the one *triggered* here to reply to me with that nonsensical comment, as this person does so frequently elsewhere….exercising mental gymnastics to defend Facebook.

            Re: “doesn’t paint you in a great light”

            Ummm….ok, so I cheer the courts doing their job & comment on justice being served & you make this mental leap?

            What doesn’t paint you in a great light is your attacking someone who trusts the courts & compliments justice being served….when a ruling paints your favoured brand (Facebook) in a bad light.

            Re: “Zeni who are being clearly anti-consumer here”
            Evidence please? You make this wild claim with nothing to back it up. Zenimax was protecting themselves & took action….and guess what – the courts agreed.

            I can only assume you’re a legal expert with much more expertise and experience than the justices/legal experts who handled this court case.

            I can’t imagine why Zuckerberg didn’t hire you, as you obviously have a better understanding of the law than the legal experts involved in this case.

        • Javed Asghar

          He def works for facebook/oculus or is basically their’s for free PR or as they see fit for him – this is obviously all from his comments here, I don’t know him.

          And what’s even more interesting he pretends to everyone here that is all about VR growing then throws scares of powerful lawyers and money.. AND AND keeps going on about just wait, vive will fail soon too just wait it will happen(having his fingers crossed). What a sad state of affairs if he is seriously not making $150k a year atleast out of this job.

  • REP

    Okay, let’s shut down Oculus Rift and bring John Carmack, fatboy Palmer and Iribe to work for HTC Vive. Oculus Rift isn’t going to take off anyway.

    • Surykaty

      fatboy palmer who said 300$ cv rift? that fresnels are useless?.. and you can go on and on about his errors… don’t get me wrong.. I acknowledge Palmer’s #1 position as the catalyst of the modern VR.. but he’s already past his usefulness.. he can ride his car into the sunset as the hero and the father of modern VR

      • DM

        People don’t get as far as Valve, Sony and Oculus without making mistakes, or wrong assumptions. The important thing is about learning from the mistakes. You can’t say Palmer is useless now because he made errors years ago.

        • Surykaty

          Yes I can actually..

    • Get Schwifty!

      Of course, you do realize these men combined have more than enough personal money and clout with investors to fund their own VR company and easily compete with HTC on this front? Just saying…. and why you would put all your VR eggs and hopes in one basket (HTC) because of good tracking is beyond reason.

      Oh, yes, my apologies, I keep forgetting most people are emotional respondents first and critical thinkers second….

  • RipVoid

    I’ll say this right up front that with this post I’m going to engage in speculation.

    The verdict against Oculus almost certainly makes it insolvent. That means they are a candidate for bankruptcy. They could do so voluntarily or could be forced in by Zenimax. Bankruptcy could involve a restructuring or a dissolution of the company and sale of assets. In the event of a dissolution Facebook as the shareholder and Zenimax as the primary creditor would be the two favorites to end up purchasing the IP. That means that Facebook could be directly in the VR business or Zenimax could be in the VR business. This new VR company could still be named Oculus if the name is deemed to have value and also purchased. Facebook could ultimately decide that this is a cheaper way to stay in the VR business than bailing Oculus out.

    Regardless of bankruptcy, Facebook shareholders have to be considering lawsuits against the Oculus principals. As part of the sale to Facebook, representations about the ownership of IP were most likely made that did not turn out to be true. If there is a bankruptcy, the trustee will be looking at similar lawsuits. Its possible that the principals will end up owing money to the trustee and/or Facebook as well as Zenimax.

    Its also quite possible that a myriad of issues are settled behind the scenes with non disclosure agreements and it all goes away quietly. If this injunction is granted this could all come to a head very quickly but I will be surprised if it is. The judge will be aware that it is wrecking a business and won’t do that unless absolutely necessary.

    Regardless, Oculus is a company that is hanging in the balance right now. It will be interesting.

    • Get Schwifty!

      I’ll give you my take in response…. First I think phrases like “Oculus is a company that is hanging in the balance” are melodramatic and do nothing but serve your emotional dislike of the company and simply don’t reflect realities.

      FB/Oculus have high powered lawyers that know tactics you guys don’t even think of. The most obvious one is this and I bet happens:

      Oculus does an internal audit of their code and looking at the case and decides where to fund replacement IP, while at the same time stalling the current case(s) with appeals and counter suits. As they move along replacing said IP with their own (and there’s nothing magical that cant be repeated), Zenimax gets nothing in settlement and continues to pay out in legal fees effectively lowering their return from the suits as their legal position slowly weakens. All the while Oculus eventually moves completely off Zenimax IP which now puts Zenimax in the position of complaining about only what happened in the past and Oculus both limits the payout (probably to 50%-75%) of original awards and now completely weakens their case for any continuing damages, and maybe pays an agreed upon settlement out of court or in some form of licensing for past use, but Zenimax loses utterly in the future. This move to create an injunction is a tactic to keep the legal team at Oculus off-balance as they focus to limit the damages and move on.

      Could either of be right? Sure. But I bet unless Facebook has the worst lawyers in the world what I described is much more likely than the sudden closing of the doors you would like to see. Consider the gross misconduct of part of Volkswagen and their recall and see how they still are around and sell cars….

      PS: Even if the injunction is granted, this in no ways means Oculus can’t continue to develop and move on; it may stall them for awhile but it in no way shuts the doors or prevents users from using their existing products.

      • Javed Asghar

        “FB/Oculus have high powered lawyers” lol again with the money and high powered laywyers scare. So what is your job at facebook/oculus anyways? do you comment at work i mean its cool that you get paid for this PR.