Zenimax Media has filed a lawsuit against Oculus, accusing the VR-focused company of "wrongfully taking" the former's intellectual property and having "commercially exploited it for their own gain."
In legal documentation acquired by Polygon, it's suggested that the work done by former id Software man John Carmack "represented an enormous technical advance in the development of virtual reality entertainment," and that before he got involved, the prototype made by Palmer Luckey was just a "primitive virtual reality headset" that lacked "critical features".
It's these features, and Carmack's work on them (and, allegedly others from the company), that Zenimax are suggesting encompasses the use of trade secrets and copyright infringement. Zenimax are also suggesting that they showed Luckey an improved prototype of the Rift headset, but under a nondisclosure agreement.
Following E3 2012, where Carmack was at the show with an early prototype of the VR headset, Luckey is said to have formed his company and produced hardware and software that wouldn't have been possible before Zenimax's contribution."Without it, there would have not been a viable Rift product," it says in the lawsuit.
"Intellectual property forms the foundation of our business," said Zenimax chairman and CEO, Robert Altman. "We cannot ignore the unlawful exploitation of intellectual property that we develop and own, nor will we allow misappropriation and infringement to go unaddressed."
"The lawsuit filed by ZeniMax has no merit whatsoever," a representative from Oculus told Polygon. "As we have previously said, ZeniMax did not contribute to any Oculus technology. Oculus will defend these claims vigorously.
This news comes just weeks after Zenimax accused Carmack of using Zenimax tech on the Oculus project, accusations to which Oculus responded in the days that followed.
With Oculus now enjoying the backing of Facebook, after the social media giant bought the VR firm for $2 billion in March, it looks like this one will run on for a while longer.