ZeniMax Sues Another Company Over Virtual Reality, Sets Sights On Samsung’s Gear VR

Zen­i­Max, the par­ent com­pa­ny of Bethes­da, is suing anoth­er com­pa­ny after win­ning in a law­suit against Ocu­lus. Although that law­suit will like­ly go on, Zen­i­Max is now suing Sam­sung for its use of Ocu­lus Rift tech­nol­o­gy in Gear VR.

This law­suit is only pos­si­bly because of their suc­cess with the law­suit against Ocu­lus Rift. It was ruled that Ocu­lus must pay Zen­i­Max for copy­right infringe­ment and because Plamer Lucky broke NDA. This was a par­tial vic­to­ry as they only received $500 mil­lion out of the $4 bil­lion they were seeking. 

Now Zen­i­Max is claim­ing that Sam­sung con­tin­ued devel­op­ing Gear VR using Ocu­lus Rift tech­nol­o­gy despite know­ing about the ongo­ing law­suit between them and Ocu­lus. They also state that Sam­sung did not ask for per­mis­sion and even updat­ed Gear VR after their vic­to­ry in court. In addi­tion they state that John Car­ma­ck came up with the idea of Mobile VR while still work­ing for id Soft­ware. He then pro­ceed­ed to allow Matt Hoop­er to see com­pa­ny files and came up with an “attack plan” togeth­er for mobile VR. Hoop­er then told con­tacts at Ocu­lus about these plans. Sub­se­quent­ly Ocu­lus would then pro­vide these details to Samsung. 

Zen­i­Max is seek­ing roy­al­ties, dam­ages, and prof­it for copy­right infringe­ment and use of trade secrets. There is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that the pre­vi­ous law­suit is over­turned how­ev­er if not then Zen­i­Max has strong basis for the law­suit against Sam­sung. Of course, noth­ing is guar­an­teed; Sam­sung has plen­ty of resources to fight the lawsuit.