Zuckerberg speaks in court for the theft of intellectual property by Oculus
Founder of the social network Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, acted as a witness during a federal court session in Dallas, reports Reuters . The reason for this was the accusation of the company ZeniMax in the theft of their intellectual property by Oculus, which since 2014 has been owned by Facebook.
Zuckerberg publicly rejected all the accusations against the manufacturer of VR-helmets and said that all the Oculus VR designs were obtained by legal means. ZeniMax sued Oculus back in 2014, when a startup was preparing to buy a social network. Now, the alleged party claims $ 2 billion in damages from Facebook.
ZeniMax publisher owns ID Software, Bethesda Softworks and other gaming studios. The company's management claims that John Carmack, the former technical director of ID Software, during his retirement from the studio in 2013, stole the development of ZeniMax, on which the Oculus system is now based.
The current owner of Oculus in the face of Zuckerberg strongly disagrees with the accusations on the part of ZeniMax. In court, the founder of Facebook did not deny that after closing the transaction on the purchase of Oculus for $ 2.3 billion, he received a letter from ZeniMax that the VR-helmet uses the development stolen from the company, but, apparently, simply ignored it.
“It often happens that when you announce a large transaction, there are people who claim their rights to a certain part (of your acquisition). Like most people in this room, I have never heard of ZeniMax before. I know that our team of lawyers will understand this matter ... ", - quoted the words of Zuckerberg by NY Times journalist Mike Isaac , who was present in the courtroom during the hearing.
At the same time, Zuckerberg noted that he had decided to personally participate in the process as a witness, since all the allegations of theft of intellectual property are “false, and to testify about this is extremely important.”
The purchase of Oculus cost Facebook almost $ 3.3 billion. In addition to the paid $ 2.3 billion for the startup itself, the social network spent another $ 700 million to retain Oculus key employees, and then invested $ 300 million in development. Based on these figures, Zuckerberg’s desire to defend his acquisition personally is more than understandable.
During the meeting, apart from the owner of the social network, Oculus founder Lucky Palmer, Oculus PC VR director Brendan Iribe and project technical director John Carmack gave their testimony.