Zenimax May Seek an Injunction to Halt Sales of the Oculus Rift

ffronw

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Oct 24, 2013
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Zenimax May Seek an Injunction to Halt Sales of the Oculus Rift

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1379/1379590.jpgAfter winning a $500 million award from the jury in its lawsuit against Oculus, Zenimax says it may seek an injunction to temporarily halt sales of the VR headset.

Yesterday, a ruling was handed down in the long-running lawsuit filed by Zenimax against Oculus. The jury in that case awarded Zenimax a $500 million judgment for Oculus' infringing of copyright and trademarks, as well as for violating a non-disclosure agreement.

After the verdict, Zenimax provided a statement, which can be read in full in our previous article on the verdict [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169432-ZeniMax-Awarded-500-Million-in-Oculus-Lawsuit]. Within that statement was a paragraph worth noting.

"We will consider what further steps we need to take to ensure there will be no ongoing use of our misappropriated technology, including by seeking an injunction to restrain Oculus and Facebook from their ongoing use of computer code that the jury found infringed ZeniMax's copyrights."

Such an injunction would likely halt the sale of the Oculus Rift headset until such time as the company could demonstrate that it was no longer using the infringing code. Obviously, there's no guarantee that the court would grant such an injunction, but if it were to do so, it could be a serious blow to Oculus. It's also possible that an injunction could halt sales of the Samsung Gear VR as well, as it uses Oculus tech.

Zenimax has not filed for an injunction yet, but the mere mention of the fact that it might indicates that the $500 million judgment may not be the end of Oculus' worries. Of course, there's still a chance that the case could change dramatically on appeal, and an Oculus spokesperson has already told us that they plan to do just that.

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enginieri

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As if Oculus is not enough behind the Vive in sales... Zenimax you want to kill your gold goose doesn't you?
On the other hand, maybe one player less in the VR race is beneficial in the long run.. but poor oculus users :'(
 

fix-the-spade

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Feb 25, 2008
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enginieri said:
On the other hand, maybe one player less in the VR race is beneficial in the long run.. but poor oculus users :'(
In the long run a lack of competition is bad for everyone.

I never thought there would be a scenario that would make me root for Facebook over Valve, but here we are.
 

90sgamer

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fix-the-spade said:
enginieri said:
On the other hand, maybe one player less in the VR race is beneficial in the long run.. but poor oculus users :'(
In the long run a lack of competition is bad for everyone.

I never thought there would be a scenario that would make me root for Facebook over Valve, but here we are.
Exactly right. This is bad for VR.

We need to make sure to place blame where it belongs: squarely on Occulus and not Zenimax. The suit was meritorious and the judgment was just, and Occulus deserved it, but I do hope it manages to remain a viable competitor to the Vive.
 

rodneyy

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Sep 10, 2008
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while im not exactly an expert on these sort of legal cases. i think this is a counter play to get occulus to pay up the settelment and move on.

you always hear about these cases going on for ages with appeals and counter suits and whatnot, but as you have said its occulus vs the vive for high end VR (as sony seems to have the low end cornered for the moment). occulus knows that if even for a short time they cant sell their system they will fall even further behind in tearms of sales.
all the bad press you would garner from something like that happening could stretch beyond that. even if people were able to purchase an occulus after any embargo was lifted they might be hesitant incase something like this could happen again, afterall a short loss of sales could be recovered from but a longer block could take down the system for good and then anyone who has bought one is screwed, as any software support would go. it wouldnt take much. that drives more to the vive and death spirals ensue.

so as i see it this is a Sword of Damocles type deal, we hang this over you knowing this might be very bad, or even the end, for you. pay up, not all that was given but some of it do it now and we walk away. dont drag this out better to take a small hit that a bigger one down the line
 

ffronw

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Oct 24, 2013
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Recusant said:
Wait- only half a million? Did you forget a few zeroes?
I did. Been sick all week and my brain is not firing properly just yet. Thanks for the catch.
 

Quellist

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Oct 7, 2010
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enginieri said:
As if Oculus is not enough behind the Vive in sales... Zenimax you want to kill your gold goose doesn't you?
On the other hand, maybe one player less in the VR race is beneficial in the long run.. but poor oculus users :'(
I wouldn't call the Oculus a Golden Goose, Bronze at best, maybe Tin based on sales
 

faefrost

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Jun 2, 2010
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rodneyy said:
while im not exactly an expert on these sort of legal cases. i think this is a counter play to get occulus to pay up the settelment and move on.

you always hear about these cases going on for ages with appeals and counter suits and whatnot, but as you have said its occulus vs the vive for high end VR (as sony seems to have the low end cornered for the moment). occulus knows that if even for a short time they cant sell their system they will fall even further behind in tearms of sales.
all the bad press you would garner from something like that happening could stretch beyond that. even if people were able to purchase an occulus after any embargo was lifted they might be hesitant incase something like this could happen again, afterall a short loss of sales could be recovered from but a longer block could take down the system for good and then anyone who has bought one is screwed, as any software support would go. it wouldnt take much. that drives more to the vive and death spirals ensue.

so as i see it this is a Sword of Damocles type deal, we hang this over you knowing this might be very bad, or even the end, for you. pay up, not all that was given but some of it do it now and we walk away. dont drag this out better to take a small hit that a bigger one down the line
Of course it is. Facebook paid a coup,e of Billion usd for Occulus didn't they? So now Zenimax is saying pay up the $500 million judgement or we get an injunction that forces a total loss on that billion dollar investment. It's not a subtle or unexpected legal maneuver. Zenimax loses nothing doing this. The judgement is not going to force Facebook into bankruptcy in order to dodge it. Zenimax will get paid no matter what. But an injunction costs Facebook even more if they don't write the check now, and instead attempt to drag on for appeals. If Facebook drags this out Zenimax threatens to tie up and effectively kill the product, costing them all the investment. Which is substantially higher than the judgement. In short Facebook is screwed.
 

Sight Unseen

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Nov 18, 2009
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fix-the-spade said:
enginieri said:
On the other hand, maybe one player less in the VR race is beneficial in the long run.. but poor oculus users :'(
In the long run a lack of competition is bad for everyone.

I never thought there would be a scenario that would make me root for Facebook over Valve, but here we are.
Valve? This is Zenimax we're talking about, not Valve.
 

fix-the-spade

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Sight Unseen said:
Valve? This is Zenimax we're talking about, not Valve.
I think you should read threads more carefully before posting.

I was responding to the comment above me, which was talking about the possibility of this damaging Occulus' position in the VR market. This would leave Occulus trailing Valve/HTC even more than they already are, which in the long run would be bad for everyone, a monopoly or effective monopoly is never good for the consumer.
 

Czann

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Jan 22, 2014
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Screw Zenimax's greed. The parasites want to feed off a nascent revolution and suck it dry.