TECHNOLOGY STARTUPS QUARREL ESCALATES
Facebook in court battle over claims it stole Oculus design
Zenimax is seeking $2bn in damages, which is about what facebook paid to acquire Oculus in 2014
Dallas — Facebook bet early on virtual reality, buying Oculus VR two-and-a-half years ago to get its groundbreaking headset. Now it is fighting claims that the Oculus Rift was built with stolen technology and promoted with a false origin story about a young entrepreneur tinkering in his parents’ garage. What started as a falling out between tech geeks is now a messy $2bn dispute that may drag Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg onto the witness stand in a Dallas courtroom. Facebook is accused of completing its acquisition of Oculus in 2014 with "full awareness" that the "holy grail" know-how behind one of Silicon Valley’s most promising consumer devices was misappropriated from another company. ZeniMax Media is trying to show it did the heavy lifting to develop the software and hardware for the virtual reality goggles, alleging a star employee recruited by Oculus purloined its intellectual property. Virtual Reality Boom Facebook and the Oculus executives named in the lawsuit deny wr...
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