ZeniMax Files to Halt Oculus’ Use of Rift & Gear!

[kevinw729]

According to a report by Reuters, ZeniMax
filed papers on Thursday, at the same court where the early 2017 trial
was held, which seek an injunction that would prevent distribution of
the VR code that was found to infringe on ZeniMax’s copyright. According
to the filing, ZeniMax’s proposed injunction would include core
software that makes the Oculus ecosystem work, including the company’s
PC SDK for Rift and Mobile SDK for Gear VR

So when we raised this during the Jury results on this forum certain posters said this was never going to happen!

Well now it looks like the issue is not just going to pull in CV1 but also GearVR!

[nalex66]

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but I have a hard time imagining that a judge would grant such an injunction. Even the jury found that there were no future damages for ZeniMax in their verdict, so why would the court impede Oculus's business?

Blocking sales is done when allowing those sales to continue would harm the plaintiff's business or market position. ZeniMax has no HMD to sell, and isn't in the business of producing VR API software, so I'm not sure how they will demonstrate to the court that allowing Oculus to do business will harm them.

This is a pressure tactic to try to force a settlement, obviously, but I'm not sure that it will be a very successful one. FB has already dug in their heels enough to go to trial, and I don't see them dropping their appeal to challenge of the copyright infringement ruling now.

[vannagirl]

Is this same halting that apple try with samsung??

[nalex66]

vannagirl said:

Is this same halting that apple try with samsung??

Similar, although in the case of Apple v Samsung I think it was patent infringement.

In that case, the two companies had competing products, so it was easy to argue that allowing sales of the infringing product caused an unfair market advantage which harmed the plaintiff's own profitability.

Samsung has also tried to get injunctions against Apple in the past over patent infringements in the iPhone 4S. I think they had some success in Europe and Asia before Apple settled and paid them a royalty.

[zork2001]

Even if they were selling HMD I don't see how it would matter, they don't have some patent on HMD's or any of the tec that created them to this point.

[RorschachPhoeni]

zork2001 said:

Even if they were selling HMD I don't see how it would matter, they don't have some patent on HMD's or any of the tec that created them to this point.

It is all about the money.

[falken76]

So if they are successful in this, does that mean all our rifts are useless and nothing will be made for them from that point forward?  I.E.  Ebay will suddenly have low cost Rift and GearVR?   And in the Interim, Zenimax I assume will do NOTHING to further VR at all after they get their money?

[danknugz]

kevinw729 said:

According to a report by Reuters, ZeniMax
filed papers on Thursday, at the same court where the early 2017 trial
was held, which seek an injunction that would prevent distribution of
the VR code that was found to infringe on ZeniMax’s copyright. According
to the filing, ZeniMax’s proposed injunction would include core
software that makes the Oculus ecosystem work, including the company’s
PC SDK for Rift and Mobile SDK for Gear VR

So when we raised this during the Jury results on this forum certain posters said this was never going to happen!

Well now it looks like the issue is not just going to pull in CV1 but also GearVR!

it says theyre seeking an injunction, whereas your thread title makes it sound like this is already a done deal and everyone now has to return their rift.

why do you have to make such sensationalist "attention grabbing" headlines??

[Anonymous]

I am certainly no lawyer, nor do I know much about the law, but to me it sounds like maybe Oculus is planning on appealing the previous decision awarding the 500 million, and Zenimax doing this to maybe persuade Oculus to not do so and go ahead with the payout.

[kevinw729]

danknugz said:

...why do you have to make such sensationalist "attention grabbing" headlines??

I tried to go for a short version of the original headline:

Road To VR:
"ZeniMax Seeks Injunction to Halt Oculus' Use Rift & Gear VR SDK and More"

I also did not want to use the Reuters headline as I thought I would be accused of sensationalism:

Reuters:
" Game company seeks to block Facebook from using virtual reality code"

Seems there is no pleasing some people! 😉

[Chairface]

You dont have to have a case to file a lawsuit. The previous suit showed that the current product does not use any code, literal or not, from JC's time at zenimax.

The previous lawsuit only won on some NDA claims. This injunction filing is baseless.