Oculus facing ban on VR code
February 24, 2017
ZeniMax, the video game publisher that recently won a case against Facebook’s Oculus, has asked a judge to block the firm from using its code in virtual reality products.
Earlier this month a US court ruled that Oculus had used ZeniMax’s code without permission. If the ban is enforced, it could limit the number of games available for sale with the Oculus Rift VR headset.
A spokeswoman for Oculus said that the company was continuing with its appeal, deeming the verdict “legally flawed and factually unwarranted”.
ZeniMax was awarded $500 million when a jury found that Oculus, which Facebook bought in 2014, had violated a non-disclosure agreement. The jury also ruled that Oculus had infringed some of Zenimax’s copyrighted code.
Oculus has already made the disputed code available to companies that develop games and it is also embedded in many of the games available for use on the Oculus Rift headset and some on Samsung’s Gear VR. If the judge enforces the ban, it could be a blow to the nascent technology, which Facebook has big plans for,