Facebook ordered to pay $500 million over virtual reality suit

02.02.2017 / 04:49

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It looks like Facebook is going to have to pay even more for its purchase of virtual reality company Oculus than it CEO Mark Zuckerberg originally thought.

That’s because a federal jury has found that Oculus infringed trademarks and copyrights ZeniMax Media held on virtual reality technologies. That jury is ordering Oculus and its cofounders to pay $500 million in damagges, though a judge could certainly lower that amount and Facebook could always appeal.

ZeniMax Media was initially seeking a $2 billion award in the suit. The case revolved around former ZeniMax employee and legendary video game programmer John Carmack’s involvement with Oculus co-founders Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe, who were both defendants in the suit.

ZeniMax originally contended that Carmack provided trade secrets related to virtual reality technology to Luckey. In turn, ZeniMax alleges, Luckey then used to create the Oculus Rift headset. Carmack later went on to join Oculus as its CTO.

The jury trial was noteworthy not only for the billions of dollars in damages ZeniMax was seeking, but because both Luckey and Zuckerberg took the stand to defend how Oculus.

The case gave the world a look into how Zuckerberg views the current state of virtual reality technology, and how the Facebook CEO goes about acquiring companies, at one point indicating that he is open to scaring acquisition targets into selling to the social media giant.

While Oculus was found liable for infringing ZeniMax’s intellectual property, the jury found that it did not misappropriate the company’s trade secrets. Luckey and Carmack were also cleared of the trade-secret misappropriation claim.

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Facebook ordered to pay $500 million over virtual reality suit

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