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Oculus Founder Hit With Lawsuit
An anonymous reader writes: Palmer Luckey, founder of VR headset-maker Oculus, has been sued by a company accusing him of taking their confidential information and passing it off as his own. Total Recall Technologies, based in Hawaii, claims it hired Luckey in 2011 to build a head-mounted display. Part of that employment involved Luckey signing a confidentiality agreement. In August, 2012, Luckey launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift headset, and Facebook bought his company last year for $2 billion. TRT is seeking compensatory and punitive damages (PDF).
To let him further develop it to a finished product without having to pay the usual costs, then reap the rewards after it's ready.
Why would they sue him before he got the money? That would be pretty stupid.
Please explain how this is irony.
He didn't give hinself shock treatment to erase his memory of the time he worked with us and he failed to deny that he existed during the years of 2011 and 2012. Even though he didn't steal our IP (or we would have sued for that), we want to sue anyway because we fumbled the future and he didn't!
Patent trolls are like pimps without the cool clothes and '72 Riviera with fur-lined windows.
They both make their money off other people's work.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I was a backer. Were you? Or do you feel compelling to complain on behalf of other people?
I got the main thing I backed it for - a dev kit.
Facebook buying them means an investment in learning to program for the Rift is probably 1000x more useful than it would have been otherwise.
I understand people are wary of Facebook, and for good reason. But I have seen huge upsides with pretty much no downside since Facebook bought the company.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not really. I believe there is a clean hands doctrine that says if your inaction has amplified the harm then you might not get relief for that. For example if you live in the downstairs apartment and notice water is leaking from the upstairs apartment but don't do anything to stop it or limit the damage because you'd rather get the insurance money you can get cut short. It's a lot trickier with an IP issue, is it a lump transfer or an ongoing violation but I think it has most the characteristics of the former where you take a half-finished product and hand it to someone else to finish. In that case there's no harm in delaying apart from the statute of limitations.
Let's say I'm in an accident with you, but it seems at first to not be a big deal and I don't sue for damages. However it turns out it won't heal properly and I lose a lot of money and decide to sue anyway. Am I too late? No, those costs aren't caused by the delay, they'd come no matter what and it won't count against me. Of course I'm not in the US, there you find the nearest ambulance chaser and sue for $millions, unless it was a hobo that hurt you.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings