So it begins… An IP claim against Oculus has been officially announced, and the VR world is buzzing with concern.
Oculu, LLC received a trademark for OCULU on August 16, 2011, stating that their service is “streaming of audio and video material be means of the Internet”. We have confirmation that as of Monday, February 10, 2014, a trademark infringement claim has been filed against Oculus VR Inc., alleging blatant and willful trademark infringement, false designation of origin, trademark dilution and unfair competition against Oculus VR Inc.
OCULU offers a video streaming service similar to YouTube or Vimeo, except they allow full control over the advertisements and what additional content is visible. Their service is marketed to businesses and marketers, and requires a monthly fee.
At the time of this article, the actual court filing is not available to examine, so we do not have any specifics, but according to the news release, the basis for the filing is that Oculus VR is “promoted to stream video over the Internet, including to its virtual reality headset under the plural “OCULUS.”
As stated in the complaint, “Unfortunately, Mr. Luckey, decided that he would simply add an ‘s’ to OCULU’s registered trademark and call his product and online video distribution network, OCULUS. It could have adopted any number of trademarks. OCULUS is not just headsets. They are openly building a network to ‘stream audio and video by means of the internet’ to its headset using our client’s trademark,” says OCULU attorney John P. Kristensen.
The word oculus is a second declension Latin noun meaning “eye”, the plural of which would be oculi. The USPTO doesn’t want to give anyone the monopoly on a generic word, especially one that’s substantively related to the products. There are also dozens of other trademark filings that use “oculus” for such things as plastic surgery services, optical instruments, rifle scopes, and software, which weakens the mark’s distinctiveness.
According to Kristensen, Oculus VR attempted to purchase OCULU’s website domain at one point. This is a common practice for companies since typos can sometimes bring disastrous results. Google owns www.googel.com which simply redirects you to Google’s main search page.
What is Oculus VR’s next step?
“Defending this type of litigation through trial could easily accrue $250-750k in legal fees”, according to Eric Greenbaum, on the Greenbaum Patent Blog. His thought is that Oculus VR might want to consider the possibilities of settling, but warns that settling might make Oculus VR an easy target for other companies seeking an easy payout. “It’s worth noting that OCULU will have to spend substantial sums to prosecute the case, also racking up legal bills in the $250k range. Oculus VR is currently working with somewhere approaching $100 million in funding. I don’t think OCULU has that kind of cash on hand”, states Eric.
I am personally looking forward to signing up for Oculus VR’s streaming video service. Unfortunately, I don’t think such a thing exists or is planned.