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The Zenimax VS Oculus lawsuit is still going on and things appear to be heating up a bit, as Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook which bought Oculus for $2 billion a while back, has been ordered to testify for the case.
A court in Texas gave the order for Zuckerberg to provide testimony, outside of court to provide information that could be used in the case. The idea is to learn a little more about the circumstances surrounding Facebook's acquisition of Oculus as Zuckerberg will likely have some “unique knowledge” of the deal.
Obviously Facebook's legal team tried to fight against the order, with lawyers saying: “Litigants often demand Mr. Zuckerberg’s deposition, not to uncover discoverable information, but as a tactic to put pressure on Facebook and harass its most senior executive.”
A lot of the lawsuit hinges on the fact that John Carmack left id Software (owned by Zenimax) to work at Oculus on virtual reality. Zenimax is accusing Carmack of taking its own intellectual property over to Oculus, as technology he developed at id Software would belong to the company. Palmer Luckey has also been accused of stealing trade secrets.
KitGuru Says: Facebook and Oculus have both branded the lawsuit as “ridiculous” and given the timing, it does seem like Zenimax is trying to get its hands on some of Facebook's money. That said, a lot of this lawsuit will depend on the terms of John Carmack's employment contract with Zenimax, which we aren't privy to at this time.
All I’m hearing here is Zenimax being bitchy about losing a valuable employee, who then went on to develop something worth a lot of money – money they’d like to have. It’s not about IPs, it’s not about Facebook, it’s not about Zuckerberg, it’s all about them losing Palmer and them wanting more money.