As far as I know, it’s fairly common to seek injunctions during legal fights over intellectual rights cases, so I’m not sure how surprising this should be. Still, after the $500 million USD judgment against Oculus, ZeniMax has indeed filed for a court order to, according to UploadVR, block the usage of Oculus PC software, Oculus Mobile software, and the plug-ins for Unity and Unreal Engine. They also demand, as usual, that Oculus deletes all copies of the infringing code and a few other stipulations.
I should stress that this is just a filing. It would need to be accepted for it to have any weight.
The timing is quite disruptive to Oculus, too, even if by total co-incidence. Epic Games is about to release their flagship, Oculus-exclusive title, Robo Recall, which was intended to be released for free to those who have Oculus Touch controllers. If it succeeds, and that’s way more if than when at this point, then that could sting for whoever gets stuck with the game’s invoice, which (I assume) would be Oculus.
Personally, I’m not quite sure how far this will go. Based on my memory of the jury decision, ZeniMax is entitled to $500 million USD for prior damages, and nothing for ongoing damages. You would think that, if a jury ruled that the infringement has no lasting effect, that an injunction wouldn’t recover any of that non-existent value. On the other hand, I’m not a judge (or anyone else of legal relevance) so what I reason doesn’t really matter outside the confines of this website.
We’ll need to wait and see if this goes anywhere.
I think with their awarded
I think with their awarded damages, Zenimax may very well be the most profitable company in the VR space for now, if not ever.
Well I won’t be buying
Well I won’t be buying anymore Zenimax products .. If they deserved $$$ for some legal reason, fine.. I’m not happy they decided to do nothing with the technology and then troll for money, but that’s the real world. Now trying to block sale of the product even after being awarded damages? You won’t see any of my money Zenimax..
Ahhh another non-technical
Ahhh another non-technical jury being asked to weigh in on highly technical matters. Honestly all jury members on these trials should be required, at a minimum, to hold a bachelors of science.
Wait for the appeals process
Wait for the appeals process to work it’s way before any products sales may be halted. Any appeals court may have to look at the judgment first before any lower court’s decision can be enforced! It all depends on what the appeals court does before the appeals process can proceed. Any enforcment of a lower court’s judgment may be put off under Appeal until the Appeals court makes it’s final judgment!
One thing is for sure the lawyers are getting paid so they are happy with any appeals process.
Texas! The patent Trolls’ playground!
Facebook Inc’s big ambitions
Facebook Inc’s big ambitions in the nascent virtual reality industry could be threatened by a court order that would prevent it from using critical software code another company claims to own, according to legal and industry experts.
http://www.virtualrealitytimes.com/category/hardware/
Wait. So what are they
Wait. So what are they trying to set an injunction on?
An injunction on sales of a product is one thing. But the way this article reads, it sounds like they will require Oculus to issue updates to disable and delete the Oculus software on customers’ machines.
That would set a dangerous precedent.
The ‘AFC test’ rears its ugly
The ‘AFC test’ rears its ugly head again. Groklaw have a good overview of it’s use and abuse with a worked example: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20040715212732854