Zenimax threatens to sue Oculus VR for IP theft: Is Carmack a liability?

Now that Oculus has Mark Zuckerberg as a sugar daddy, it seems that ZeniMax wants in on some of that sweet Facebook cash. John Carmack’s former employer is claiming that Oculus VR is unfairly using its intelectual property, and it’s threatening to take action. John Carmack and the Oculus team quickly and publicly rebutted ZeniMax’s claims, but the legal situation is bound to get even stickier from here.
It seems that Oculus VR can’t go very long without drama these days. Carmack abandoned ZeniMax (and Id Software) in favor of Oculus VR late last year, and Facebook bought the fledgling virtual reality company for two billion dollars just over a month ago. The internet immediately began frothing at the idea of the social media empire encroaching into the world of VR, but all the ZeniMax legal team sees is an opportunity to get a piece of the pie.

Image credit: metavariable

Over at The Wall Street Journal, it recently came to light that ZeniMax is targeting Oculus and Facebook because of some unnamed intelectual property that John Carmack supposedly “improperly shared” with the Oculus team. Blood is in the water, and ZeniMax smells it.
Of course, Carmack was quick to reply over Twitter. He specifically claims that nothing he’s ever worked on has been patented, and ZeniMax only owns the code he wrote under its employ. In a follow-up tweet, Carmack goes on to clarify that “Oculus uses zero lines of code that I wrote while under contract to ZeniMax.” He clearly thinks that ZeniMax is in the wrong, but that’s not much of a surprise considering his current position as CTO of Oculus VR.

Yesterday, an Oculus representative made an official statement to the press: “We are disappointed but not surprised by ZeniMax’s actions,” he said, “and we will prove that all of its claims are false.” This statement reiterates that none of ZeniMax’s code is used in the Oculus product, and Carmack didn’t use any of its intelectual property. Most damningly, Oculus points out that the complete source code of the Rift is available online, but ZeniMax has never once identified a single piece of pilfered technology.

It remains to be seen if ZeniMax’s claims have any legitimacy, but it leaves me wondering if Zuckerberg is suffering from buyer’s remorse right about now. Sure, John Carmack and the Oculus team are incredibly smart and talented, but the baggage that comes along with them might be a bit more than Facebook bargained for.