Oculus ‘disappointed but surprised’ over ZeniMax’s ‘false’ Rift claims

Virtual reality company Oculus is "disappointed by not surprised" by video game publisher Zenimax Media's recent claims that it has rights to the Rift VR headset. However, in a statement issued today, Oculus said that they will "prove all of its claims are false."

"There is not a line of Zenimax code or any of its technology in any Oculus products," the company refuted, adding that John Carmack — who recently left Zenimax to work at Oculus — did not take any intellectual property from Zenimax. Oculus also points out that Zenimax has never identified any "stolen" code or technology in the Oculus SDK full source code (which can be viewed here).

"Zenimax has misstated the purposes and language of the Zenimax non-disclosure agreement that Palmer Luckey signed," Oculus added. "A key reason that John permanently left Zenimax in August of 2013 was that Zenimax prevented John from working on VR, and stopped investing in VR games across the company."

"Zenimax did not pursue claims against Oculus for IP or technology, Zenimax has never contributed any IP or technology to Oculus, and only after the Facebook deal was announced has Zenimax now made these claims through its lawyers," Oculus concluded.

Oculus reached an agreement with Facebook back in march that allowed the social media giant to acquire Oculus VR for approximately $2 billion. Though the transaction was met with sharp criticism by some in the gaming industry, both Oculus and Facebook assured that video games would remain a major point of emphasis in developing the virtual reality technology. Of course, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg also shared plans "to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences."