American video game developer sues Oculus VR over virtual reality headset
News: technology company Oculus VR has said it will defend itself "vigorously" against claims that it used the intellectual property and expertise of ZeniMax Media to develop the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
Video game developer and publisher ZeniMax Media filed a lawsuit against Oculus VR last week in the federal court of Dallas, Texas.
The lawsuit claims that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey had technical assistance from John Carmack – who was among a number of staff who joined Oculus from ZeniMax and its subsidiary companies – and that insider information was used in the development of Oculus' virtual reality technology.
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It is focusing the dispute on the use of "copyrighted computer code, trade secret information and technical know-how" and a non-disclosure agreement that it says Oculus has breached.
"The lawsuit filed by ZeniMax has no merit whatsoever," an Oculus representative told Dezeen. "As we have previously said, ZeniMax did not contribute to any Oculus technology. Oculus will defend these claims vigorously."
Oculus Rift was first launched on crowd-funding website Kickstarter in 2012. The wearable device creates an immersive computer-generated environment in front of a person. It was purchased earlier this year by social network Facebook for $2 billion.
Image at top courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.