Facebook’s Oculus ordered pay USD500 mn in suit on stolen tech

TIL Desk/Business/Washington-A US jury has ordered Facebook and creators of its Oculus Rift to pay USD 500 million to gaming software firm ZeniMax in a lawsuit that claimed the virtual reality technology was stolen.

The Texas jury made the award yesterday in a trial in which Oculus was accused of basing its Rift headset on technology stolen from ZeniMax’s virtual reality software, court documents showed.

The lawsuit claimed Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and his colleagues developed the virtual reality gear using source code illegally obtained from the gaming firm. Luckey was ordered to pay USD 50 million of the award and another former Oculus executive, Brendan Iribe USD 150 million.

The two executives were accused of violating a non-disclosure agreement with ZeniMax and copying the source code and other documents on a USB storage device. ZeniMax had sought USD 4 billion in damages in the case, in which Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg testified to defend his company.