Friday, May 2, 2014

Facebook, Oculus Face Legal Challenge From ZeniMax

The acquisition of Irvine-based Oculus by Facebook, which was announced in March, is one of the fastest, largest, and most significant acquisitions out of Southern California's technology ecosystem in many years. However, it's not going to be the smoothest--as both Facebook and Oculus are now fending off a lawsuit from a company, saying that its virtual reality headsets use its intellectual property--and that one of its former employees improperly shared its technology with Oculus. ZeniMax Media has challenged Facebook and Oculus in court, claiming that the company's virtual reality headset uses intellectual property owned by the company, and that former employee John Carmack--who is known for the Doom and Wolfenstein 3D games--improperly shared technology with Oculus which made the company's virtual reality headsets possible. Details on the suit were first uncovered by the WSJ.

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