The spat between ZeniMax Media and Oculus VR escalated to a court battle today, with ZeniMax suing the virtual reality firm for misappropriating ZeniMax trade secrets.
ZeniMax is also throwing in breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition into the suit, which was filed in Texas district court and names Oculus VR and founder Palmer Luckey.
At issue is intellectual property, "including trade secrets, copyrighted computer code, and technical know-how relating to virtual reality technology that was developed by ZeniMax after years of research and investment," ZeniMax, a Maryland-based video game publisher, said in a statement.
According to the complaint, former employee John Carmack started corresponding with Luckey in April 2012, when the Oculus Rift was "a crude prototype."
Luckey gave Carmack an early version of the Rift "and Carmack and other ZeniMax personnel added numerous improvements to the prototype," the complaint says. "Together, those ZeniMax employees literally transformed the Rift by adding physical hardware components and developing specialized software for its operation."
ZeniMax showed off a modified version of the Rift at E3 2012, after having Luckey sign a non-disclosure agreement. The positive reaction at the show prompted Luckey to form his company, Oculus LLC, the complaint says. ZeniMax says it tried to nail down a compensation deal for its work on the Oculus Rift, but Oculus was "evasive" in 2012 and no deal was ever reached.
"Intellectual property forms the foundation of our business," Robert Altman, Chairman & CEO of ZeniMax, said in a statement. "We cannot ignore the unlawful exploitation of intellectual property that we develop and own, nor will we allow misappropriation and infringement to go unaddressed."
"The lawsuit filed by ZeniMax has no merit whatsoever. As we have previously said, ZeniMax did not contribute to any Oculus technology. Oculus will defend these claims vigorously," Oculus VR said in a statement today.
When news of a disagreement between Oculus and ZeniMax first made headlines, Oculus suggested that ZeniMax is simply seeing dollar signs after its $2 billion Facebook acquisition. In the complaint, ZeniMax said the Facebook deal confirms "the enormous value of the intellectual property that ZeniMax had created, and that [Oculus] had taken."
"Accordingly, ZeniMax brings this action seeking full and fair compensation," the company said.
Oculus VR has said that ZeniMax's accusations are "false."
"ZeniMax did not pursue claims against Oculus for IP or technology, ZeniMax has never contributed any IP or technology to Oculus, and only after the Facebook deal was announced has ZeniMax now made these claims through its lawyers," an Oculus spokesman said earlier this month.
Carmack, co-founder of id Software and lead programmer for groundbreaking titles like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, also addressed the controversy on Twitter on May 1.
No work I have ever done has been patented. Zenimax owns the code that I wrote, but they don't own VR.
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) May 1, 2014For more, check out PCMag's Hands On With the Oculus Rift DK2.
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 8:10 p.m. ET with more details from the complaint.