Jury Orders Oculus To Pay $500 Million In ZeniMax Lawsuit (polygon.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Polygon: A Dallas, Texas jury today awarded half a billion dollars to ZeniMax after finding that Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey, and by extension Oculus, failed to comply with a non-disclosure agreement he signed. In awarding ZeniMax $500 million, the jury also said that Oculus did not misappropriate trade secrets as contended by ZeniMax. Of the $500 million, Oculus is paying out $200 million for breaking the NDA and $50 million for copyright infringement. Oculus and Luckey each have to pay $50 million for false designation. And Iribe has to pay $150 million for the same, final count. The decision came back Wednesday afternoon following two and a half days of deliberation in the case being tried in a United States District court in the North District of Texas. Both id Software co-founder John Carmack and Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey were in the courtroom when the verdict was read. During closing arguments, ZeniMax attorney Anthony Sammi called the incident a heist and argued that ZeniMax should be awarded $2 billion in compensation and another $2 billion in punitive damages. Oculus attorney Beth Wilkinson argued that the multibillion-dollar lawsuit was driven by ZeniMax's embarrassment, jealousy and anger, not facts. It remains unclear what sort of impact this will have on the daily retail sale of the Oculus Rift headsets.

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[Anonymous Coward]

[X] Rekt
[ ] Not rekt

We'll see what happens on appeal, and what this means to companies that poach employees in the future.

Impact?

[PCM2]

It remains unclear what sort of impact this will have on the daily retail sale of the Oculus Rift headsets.

Probably none -- at least, not until after Oculus' appeal is heard.

Re:Impact?

[guruevi]

They probably didn't absorb the company though, they kept it separate from Facebook. Oculus the company is worth $2B but I highly doubt they have even 5% of that value in assets, if nothing else they just have loads of debt and a bunch of imaginary property worth $2B. If such judgment gets held up, Oculus will be forced into bankruptcy.

FWIW, this is why you read employment contracts.

[kbonin]

I used to work for Bethesda, a ZeniMax company. Never seen a more legally aggressive employment agreement, I had to reject initial offer until they added an addendum. Without it was essentially a multi-year multi-industry no-compete phrased to get around state laws banning no-compete clauses...

Muddy waters

[fluffernutter]

This is a case of a smart person being dumb. If you want technology to be yours, you don't let it touch any machine owned by another company and you do it all on your own time. How a person could muddy the waters like this when the stakes are so high is beyond me.

North District of Texas...?

[edi_guy]

Zenimax is in MD, Oculus in CA...yet the trial is in the North District of Texas...? I've been around Slashdot long enough to understand why there are so many trials like this in the "North District of Texas" but it's still baloney that lawyers can shop the district they want to file in. I for one would like my criminal trial to be held in the state which is most lenient to whatever my crime is....

Re:North District of Texas...?

[Cajun Hell]

You're thinking of East Texas. But I do think it's funny that the mere act of an IP-related trial happening somewhere in Texas, is enough to give the whole thing the stench of illegitimacy. It's funny because it's true.

Congress should burn that (East Texas) court to the ground and re-instate it somewhere else, just to try to repair the reputation. I'm not saying they can't still have it be corrupt and biased, just that they need to shake it off because it's gotten to the point where everyone knows something is wrong.

Re:false designation?

[guruevi]

It's when you sell stuff and lie about its origin. E.g. If stuff comes from China, you can't just say it's "Made in US".

Not settled by any stretch of the imagination

[LeftCoastThinker]

Going to an appeals court near you in 3, 2, 1.

Seriously, this is round 1 out of 5, especially with the amount of money we are talking here.

Re:This is why you hire a lawyer

[citizenr]

The code Carmack tool was for Doom 3. You know, the very same code HE personally wrote, owned, and released under GPL before selling ID Software.

Re:false designation?

[null etc.]

If stuff comes from China, you can't just say it's "Made in US".

Not yet, but give Trump a few days.

fault of shitty managers priority lists

[cheekyboy]

this is because asshole managers who reprioritise the bug list, and make some obvious quick fixers so -1000 its not funny.

My moto is, if im coding after my 40hrs/week, its free time, and I can do whatever fucking bug I like. Since officially, I am coding for free, not being paid over time, fuck your priority lists. I will fix whatever god damn bug I like thats fun to fix, or quick to fix.

Always the priorities are bull shit any way.

There should be a dual layer of priorities where quick, simple , 5 minute fixers should be as high priority as show stoppers.

Even if a bug is so low priority, but embarrassing, but fixable in 5 seconds, FIX IT. Or we should be allowed to fix whatever god damn bug we emotionally fucking feel like it to feel happy, or to get more Bugs/Day done.

We coders arent robots, we have intelligence that we should be allowed to override our slave masters wishes.