In May of 2014, a lawsuit was filed by ZeniMax Media. The lawsuit was filed against Oculus and Facebook, claiming that ZeniMax Media owned some of the intellectual property and integral code used in the Oculus Rift device. Since then, it has been discovered that a lot of the argument rests on DOOM co-creator John Carmack.
John Carmack worked for ZeniMax Media in 2009, when the corporation acquired his studio Id Software for $405 million. He resigned in November 2013, and joined the Oculus Rift VR team full time. For several months before his depature from ZeniMax Media, John Carmack was working for both companies. A year earlier he was helping to build a virtual reality version of Doom 3 for Oculus Rift.
ZeniMax Media is arguing that John Carmack “improperly took ZeniMax’s intellectual property with him to Oculus.” Both Facebookand Oculus have branded ZeniMax Media’s arguments as ridicoulus, later saying that ZeniMax Media was attempting to rectiy a massive missed opportunity. ZeniMax Media’s complaint first appeared after Facebook purchased Oculus VR for $2 billion.
A court in Texas has now ordered Mark Zuckerberg to provide a testimony in the lawsuit case between ZeniMax Media and Oculus VR. This was only after it was determined that Mark Zuckerberg had ‘unique knowledge’ of details concering Facebook’s $2 billion purchase of Oculus.
It has been said by the Facebook legal team that ZeniMax Media’s request for a testimony was not proper or relevant. They said this on the matter, “Litigants often demand Mr. Zuckerberg’s deposition, not to uncover discoverable information, but as a tactic to put pressure on Facebook and harass its most senior executive.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Stickney has ruled that Zuckerberg’s deposition should just go ahead.