ZeniMax Lawsuit Against Oculus Moves Forward

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A District Court judge has dismissed motions filed by Facebook and Oculus VR seeking to have the lawsuit filed by ZeniMax Media thrown out.

The ruling late last month by Jorge A. Solis, a judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas, denied a request to dismiss the lawsuit by two of the defendants in the case, Oculus and Palmer Luckey, the company’s co-founder who came up with the idea for the Oculus virtual-reality headset. On Monday, the judge also ruled against a similar request by a third defendant in the case, Facebook, which acquired Oculus for $2 billion last year.
 
What can Zenimax possibly have to stand on with this? It's going to cost both of them tons of money in court and only one of them can really afford it.
 
Advil said:
What can Zenimax possibly have to stand on with this? It's going to cost both of them tons of money in court and only one of them can really afford it.
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Hoping to be a nuisance to be paid to go away. Also trying to enforce a sour grapes retroactive non-compete.
 
Well considering the company is just Facebook, I don't think any kind of lawsuit will really do any harm to this stuff. But yeah, Zenimax totally has a case if its gotten to this point.
 
You think Zenimax needs to do this? Aren't they a big company?

I don't remember hearing about this. Did someone from Zenimax quit and joined Oculus or something?
 
Advil said:
What can Zenimax possibly have to stand on with this? It's going to cost both of them tons of money in court and only one of them can really afford it.
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I'm not sure on the angle they are using. Their argument is that the initial development of the Rift was done using Zenimax "resources".

But from their I'm not sure what they are trying to infer. I know a lot of companies make you sign agreements that state whatever you design becomes the property of the company. But in this case they were not designing this expressely for the company, they were more "misusing" company resources.

Unless I missed that John Carmack or Palmer Lucky were actually hired by Zenimax specifically to design a VR system.
 
pothb said:
You think Zenimax needs to do this? Aren't they a big company?

I don't remember hearing about this. Did someone from Zenimax quit and joined Oculus or something?
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Yes, I think they need to make a lawsuit happen if they have a legal right to exert it on Facebook for something that happened. Like I think the claim is that some random guy (that John Carmack or whatever) was working for Zenimax and came up with ideas for VR junk while he was their employee. He probably signed something legally enforcable that makes any ideas he comes up with the property of his employer and that is the grounds for the lawsuit (I think).
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Yes, I think they need to make a lawsuit happen if they have a legal right to exert it on Facebook for something that happened. Like I think the claim is that some random guy (that John Carmack or whatever) was working for Zenimax and came up with ideas for VR junk while he was their employee. He probably signed something legally enforcable that makes any ideas he comes up with the property of his employer and that is the grounds for the lawsuit (I think).
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You know you've gotten old when a poster on a gaming-related forum refers to John Carmack as "some random guy".
 
arthur_tuxedo said:
You know you've gotten old when a poster on a gaming-related forum refers to John Carmack as "some random guy".
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Actually, i would say that you haven't been around much in these past 2.4 years...

Hint: The date i set actually has a meaning :p :)
 
Revdarian said:
Actually, i would say that you haven't been around much in these past 2.4 years...

Hint: The date i set actually has a meaning :p :)
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^^ This is probably true. :D

Theeeen again, that guy we're talking about is pretty much a nobody and if you're like a worshiper of him you probably are A) very old and B) one of those people that goes squee-crazy over pretty much anyone around that can be idolized for a meaningless accomplishment.
 
ZeniMax have a very valid case here. John Carmack was constantly talking about all the work he was doing on the Rift while still at Id, and clearly he did substantial work for Oculus while still employed by ZeniMax.

Carmack's defence is that he didn't take any of the code with him when he left Id and he rewrote it all at Oculus. Even if that were the case, it's much easier to rewrite code than it is to write it the first time because you know how to solve all the problems. ZeniMax can therefore still claim that substantial work was done on the Rift while Carmack was still under their employment.

Where Oculus/Facebook are really screwed is that Luckey offered ZeniMax a portion of the company, which essentially acknowledges that ZeniMax are due compensation for the work Carmack did on the Rift while at Id.
 
Mr Milquetoast said:
Where Oculus/Facebook are really screwed is that Luckey offered ZeniMax a portion of the company, which essentially acknowledges that ZeniMax are due compensation for the work Carmack did on the Rift while at Id.
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But at the time, did Zenimax accept the offer? Or did they wait until Occulus looked to be much more profitable?
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
^^ This is probably true. :D

Theeeen again, that guy we're talking about is pretty much a nobody and if you're like a worshiper of him you probably are A) very old and B) one of those people that goes squee-crazy over pretty much anyone around that can be idolized for a meaningless accomplishment.
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Holy crap, what are you 15? Your posts now make a lot more sense now.
 
This reminds me of the movie "The Crush" where Alicia Silverstone frames Cary Elwes by stealing his sperm from his home and beating herself up to make it look like she'd been good and raped.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
So I'm guessing you're a video game programmer fan huh? :D
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I am just a fan of history. Carmack made a huge impact on the video game era in the early 90s with Wolfenstein and Doom, he basically jump started the generation. Is he mostly irrelevant today? Maybe but the guy is much older now and ideas just don't flow as easily as they did when he was younger. Rage wasn't the game changer it was hyped up to be and so maybe he thinks he can do something completely new and revolutionary with VR. I am glad he's trying new things and hopefully he pushes VR to its limits.
 
It baffles my mind that some people still pop up from time to time who although seem to be even my seniors (only seem, since this is my 2nd account, i lost my first one waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back), they don't know CUG.

And it isn't like he posts too little or he just joined, we are talking of 29 months and almost 6000 posts already people!

>.<
 
Revdarian said:
It baffles my mind that some people still pop up from time to time who although seem to be even my seniors (only seem, since this is my 2nd account, i lost my first one waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back), they don't know CUG.

And it isn't like he posts too little or he just joined, we are talking of 29 months and almost 6000 posts already people!

>.<
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Or my previous account which makes it more like 3.6 years that I've been here doing...stuff! :eek: But this thread is about that random John Caramel guy and not about me.
 
You would thing that with such a name as John Caramel he would be mocha skinned... but noooooooooope... Dude looks like straight out of Cocoon!
 
Revdarian said:
You would thing that with such a name as John Caramel he would be mocha skinned... but noooooooooope... Dude looks like straight out of Cocoon!
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I'm not sure how that even happened. I don't have an autocorrect thing to blame since I typed that on a computer. But, um...are we really going to go down the whole pupa and butterfly route with him? After I looked him up on Wikipedia, I found out he was pretty old so I don't think colorful insect wings are in his future.
 
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