Facebook and ZeniMax Media have officially settled the long-running lawsuit that alleged Oculus stole intellectual property developed by the company’s current CTO John Carmack back when he was employed by ZeniMax’ child company id Software.

ZeniMax took Oculus to court after its acquisition by Facebook in 2014. Three years later the jury convened at the Federal District Court in Dallas and ended up awarding ZeniMax $500 million in damages, to be paid by Facebook and key Oculus employees.

In June this year, that figure was reduced by half, bringing ZeniMax’s claim against Facebook to $250 million. Those remaining damages covered copyright infringement and breach of contract, however damages relating to trademark infringement and false designation were rejected, which stipulated that Oculus pay $50 million, then-CEO Brendan Iribe pay $150 million, and co-founder Palmer Luckey pay $50 million.

Another point rejected by the judge at the time was the halting of Oculus Rift and Gear VR sales.

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The amount of the actual settlement, which was announced yesterday, is however undisclosed. Presumably it was less than the $250 million that was on the table earlier this summer.

An Oculus spokesperson had this to say about the settlement:

“We’re pleased to put this behind us and continue building the future of VR.”

Robert Altman, ZeniMax’s Chairman and CEO, had this to say:

“We are pleased that a settlement has been reached and are fully satisfied by the outcome. While we dislike litigation, we will always vigorously defend against any infringement or misappropriation of our intellectual property by third parties.”

Perhaps now ZeniMax, via child company Bethesda Software, will feel more confident bringing its games Skyrim VR (2017)Fallout 4 VR (2017), and future VR projects direct to the Oculus Store. Up until now, Bethesda has only published their games to Steam and Viveport for obvious reasons.

Although we don’t expect to see bad blood wash off so quickly, at very least Oculus has extracted one of the most serious thorns in their side since the company was acquired by Facebook back in 2014.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • JesuSaveSouls

    Good to settle things best before court.

    • jj

      (facepalm)
      “ZeniMax took Oculus to court after its acquisition by Facebook in 2014. Three years later the jury convened at the Federal District Court in Dallas and ended up awarding ZeniMax $500 million in damages, to be paid by Facebook and key Oculus employees.”

      it went to court…. this was them making a side agreement before going back.

      • Ombra Alberto

        Is Zenimax right?

        It does not seem. All its claims have fallen to its lowest terms.

        500–>250—> ……!?

        • Ballpeen

          I may be mistaken, but I got the impression Carmack was an employee of Zenimax during the time he worked with Palmer on the Rift. The Rift was in the prototype stage when he showed it to Carmack. Carmack loved it & helped out.

          • Wayne Singh

            yeah pretty spot on from my understanding too. However I believe they claimed that Carmack took some of their intellectual property with him when he moved over to Oculus also. He probably took a copy of Doom with him to make it run on the Rift :)

          • Ballpeen

            Actually that about Doom does make sense, since they had promised a free copy of Doom to those who bought the CV1 Rift.

            Got my CV1 FREE :D cuz I was one of the original Kickstarter backers. Always wondered why Doom didn’t come with it.

            I had been following the MTBS forum discussion between Palmer & Carmack, so I jumped on it in the first 24hrs of the campaign. I’ve been wanting an HMD since the late 90s when I 1st tried them out at Siggraph & a few arcades.

  • WyrdestGeek

    Does “Zenimax” mean “lawsuit” in some other language? I only ever hear about them in relation to IP disputes.

    • brandon9271

      I think it might mean “assholes”

  • Alina