The war of words between ZeniMax and Oculus VR over technology is continuing. In early May, ZeniMax lashed out at Oculus, which was recently acquired by Facebook for $2 billion, saying the company stole ZeniMax's virtual reality technology to create the now popular Oculus Rift VR headset.
ZeniMax was obviously not convinced that settling or dealing with Oculus was possible and has now filed a lawsuit against the company and specifically the founder Palmer Luckey.
Oculus fought immediately back, saying the claims in the 55-page suit are baseless and called for the case to be dismissed.
In the lawsuit, ZeniMax accuses Oculus of "illegally misappropriating ZeniMax trade secrets relating to virtual reality technology, and infringing ZeniMax copyrights and trademarks." It says Oculus was in breach of contract with ZeniMax.
At the center of the controversy is game designer John Carmack, who ZeniMax argues after he left id Software has used technology "developed by ZeniMax after years of research and investment." This, the company claims, means that intellectual property of this kind should remain theirs.
Copyright battles are nothing new for the technology world, as Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Google have been dealing with their own spats and lawsuits in recent months over technology being used on their respective platforms.
Still, this battle between ZeniMax and Oculus could have wider reaching consequences, as it pits the two industry leaders in virtual reality against one another. The victor could very well determine the future of the technology.
The lawsuit, while expected, has not stopped Oculus going on the offensive. Earlier this month, the company issued a statement claiming it can prove that "all of [ZeniMax's] claims are false." In that statement, it continued to say that no code from ZeniMax exists in Oculus' products and innovations.
Neither company was willing to speak to the media on the lawsuit, citing legal reasons.
"Intellectual property forms the foundation of our business," ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman said in a statement. "We cannot ignore the unlawful exploitation of intellectual property that we develop and own, nor will we allow misappropriation and infringement to go unaddressed."
The question now is how will a court determine whether there was an infringement. The case could be a new standard for the tech community on copyright issues.
