Oculus issues a retort to claims made by ZeniMax

<p>Last week&comma; ZeniMax made some rather bold unsubstantiated claims that John Carmack took ZeniMax property&comma; otherwise known as code&comma; and applied it to the evolution of the Oculus Rift&period; Prior to Carmack joining Oculus&comma; he was working on a VR solution for ZeniMax&comma; until they stopped work on the project&period; Since his joining of Oculus&comma; they have seen their VR headset turn into a consumer ready product&period; ZeniMax is claiming that Carmack and their code are the reasons why Oculus&&num;8217&semi; headset is now almost ready for consumer consumption&period; ZeniMax is seeking compensation from Oculus&comma; which of course&comma; was recently sold to Facebook for gobs of cash&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Oculus issued a short statement yesterday&comma; which will be their &&num;8220&semi;only response&&num;8221&semi; about these claims &&num;8220&semi;at the time&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Below is what Oculus had to say regarding ZeniMax&&num;8217&semi;s claims&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>&&num;8220&semi;We are disappointed but not surprised by Zenimax’s actions and we will prove that all of its claims are false&period; In the meantime&comma; we would like to clarify a few key points&colon;<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>There is not a line of Zenimax code or any of its technology in any Oculus products&period;<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>John Carmack did not take any intellectual property from Zenimax&period;<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>Zenimax has misstated the purposes and language of the Zenimax non-disclosure agreement that Palmer Luckey signed&period;<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>A key reason that John permanently left Zenimax in August of 2013 was that Zenimax prevented John from working on VR&comma; and stopped investing in VR games across the company&period;<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>Zenimax canceled VR support for Doom 3 BFG when Oculus refused Zenimax’s demands for a non-dilutable equity stake in Oculus&period;<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>Zenimax did not pursue claims against Oculus for IP or technology&comma; Zenimax has never contributed any IP or technology to Oculus&comma; and only after the Facebook deal was announced has Zenimax now made these claims through its lawyers&period;<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>Despite the fact that the full source code for the Oculus SDK is available online &lpar;developer&period;oculusvr&period;com&rpar;&comma; Zenimax has never identified any &OpenCurlyQuote;stolen’ code or technology&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p>via <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;giantbomb&period;com&sol;articles&sol;oculus-sharply-responds-to-zenimax-allegations&sol;1100-4911&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank">Giant Bomb<&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;