Facebook ordered to pay $500m to Zenimax

A US court Jury found Facebook and other defendants unlawfully used a firm’s virtual reality technology and the Dallas district court has ordered Facebook and other defendants to pay $500m (£395m). The Jury found Oculus, which Facebook bought in 2014, used computer code belonging to video game developer Zenimax to launch its own VR headset.

Facebook’s net profit of $3.6bn in the fourth quarter is more than double helped by 53% growth in advertising revenues and it is going to hit two billion users in early this year.

Zenimax argued that its early innovations in virtual reality were unlawfully copied and infringed copyrights and trademarks, when Oculus built its own headset, the Rift.

The co-founder of Oculus, Palmer Luckey was also found to have broken a non-disclosure agreement with the firm.

Video game developer, Zenimax creates and publishes original interactive entertainment content for Mac and PCs, next – generation consoles and mobile phones. Zenimax is the owner of Arkane Studios (developer of Dishonored and Prey), Battle Cry Studios (developer of Battle Cry), id Software ( developer of Doom series and Quake series and Rage).

ZeniMax has headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, with offices in North America, Asia, Australia and Europe. ZeniMax is partly owned by Private equity firm Providence Equity Partners and German Mass media company ProSiebenSat.1 Media. Providence invested $300m in ZeniMax in 2007 in exchange for 25% ownership stake and an additional $150million in 2010 for an undisclosed amount of shares. ProSieben Sat.1 Medua owns a 6.8% stake in ZeniMax. ZeniMax founded by Chrisotpher Weaver and Robert A Altman, was valued at $1.2bn in 2007 and $2.5bn in 2016. In May 2015 ZeniMax Media sent a letter to Facebook and Oculus VR asserting that any contributions by John Carmack ( a former employee) to the Oculus Rift project are the intellectual property of ZeniMax,