Facebook’s Oculus to pay $500 million to gaming software firm ZeniMax over copyright infringement
A US jury Wednesday ordered Facebook and creators of its Oculus Rift to pay $500 million to gaming software firm ZeniMax in a lawsuit that claimed the virtual reality technology was stolen. The Texas jury made the award in a trial in which Oculus was accused of basing its Rift headset on technology stolen from ZeniMax’s virtual reality software, court documents showed. The lawsuit claimed Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and his colleagues developed the virtual reality gear using source code illegally obtained from the gaming firm. The jury dismissed the charge that Oculus stole or misappropriated trade secrets but found Oculus liable for copyright infringement and other violations. Luckey was ordered to pay $50 million of the award and another former Oculus executive, Brendan Iribe $150 million. The two executives were accused of violating a non-disclosure agreement with ZeniMax and copying the source code and other documents on a USB storage device. ZeniMax had sought $4 billion in ...