ZeniMax is taking Occulus to court.

Ding Ding Ding. Let the gloves come off and the fight begin.

ZeniMax Media and its subsidiary, id Software, filed suit against Oculus VR and the company's founder, Palmer Luckey, claiming that Oculus illegally misappropriated ZeniMax trade secrets and infringed on ZeniMax copyrights and trademarks while developing the Oculus Rift. ZeniMax filed the suit in federal court in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

The suit claims that Oculus exploited ZeniMax IP, code and "technical know-how" (that is the technical term) regarding VR technology. ZeniMax said it gave Oculus "valuable intellectual property" under a strict NDA, and that Oculus illegally used its IP to create the Oculus Rift.

ZeniMax said it sought compensation from Oculus but was repeatedly denied. In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that ZeniMax asked Oculus for compensation after developer John Carmack left ZeniMax to become Chief Technology Officer at Oculus VR. At the time, ZeniMax said in a statement, "The proprietary technology and know-how Mr. Carmack developed when he was a ZeniMax employee, and used by Oculus, are owned by ZeniMax."

Carmack responded on Twitter with the following message: "No work I have ever done has been patented. ZeniMax owns the code that I wrote, but they don't own VR."

In today's filing, ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman said, "Intellectual property forms the foundation of our business. We cannot ignore the unlawful exploitation of intellectual property that we develop and own, nor will we allow misappropriation and infringement to go unaddressed."

ZeniMax Media divisions include id Software, Bethesda Softworks, Bethesda Game Studios and Arkane Studios, among others.

Have fun.

First getting sold to Facebook and now this...hahaha

I'll be curious to learn more. Where there's smoke, there's fire. We'll see how bright it burns.

Seen this before. I think there is a lot of anger about the Carmack thing, not sure if it amounts to more than that but we will find out I am sure.

Is this still based on the fact the people who developed the Oculus worked for Zenimax and they are trying to copyright the ideas of employees, or is their something more?

That's what I've taken away from this whole thing. I find the "misappropriation and infringement" of which Altman speaks to be pure hilarity, considering the "technical know-how" claim.

However, if there was an NDA on any code that was written under ZeniMax, they may have a case, though Carmack's twitter comment appears to suggest that their "technical know-how" was all that was used; no coding was recycled, so I guess we'll see how this turns out as the case proceeds.

ZeniMax wanted non dilutable equity in Occulus and were denied it.

I'm assuming this is a cash grab by ZeniMax