ZeniMax sues Samsung over its Oculus-based Gear VR mobile headset

ZeniMax, the game publisher who has been in a legal fight with Oculus over its PC-based Oculus Rift headset for some time, is now dragging Samsung into court as well. ZeniMax, who has published games in the Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Doom franchises, has filed a lawsuit against the South Korean-based company, claiming its Gear VR mobile headset uses code originally created at ZeniMax.

According to The Verge, ZeniMax claims in the lawsuit that Oculus executive John Carmack helped to develop the code that’s used in the Gear VR headset while he still worked at ZeniMax’s id Software development studio. In fact, ZeniMax alleges that Carmack secretly enlisted the help of Oculus employee Matt Hooper, while Carmack still worked at id, to create a plan to make a mobile VR headset, which eventually was offered to Samsung.

ZeniMax claims Samsung was aware of its earlier lawsuit against Oculus, but decided to continue working on the Gear VR headset with Oculus-based software. ZeniMax accuses Samsung of copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment in this new lawsuit. Samsung has yet to respond to ZeniMax’s statements.

In February, ZeniMax was awarded $500 million by a Texas jury, on the grounds that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey failed to comply with the non-disclosure agreement he signed with ZeniMax (Luckey officially left Oculus in late March). However, the jury did not agree with ZeniMax’s allegations that Oculus used any trade secrets from the company. Oculus, and its parent company Facebook, are currently appealing the jury’s ruling. Since then, Carmack has filed his own lawsuit against ZeniMax, claiming the company has not paid him the full amount he says was owed him when ZeniMax acquired id Software.

This article was originally published on our sibling site, VR Source.