Oculus VR came out on the wrong end of a lawsuit filed last year by ZeniMax Media, to the tune of $500 million—even though the jury found that it did not actually misappropriate ZeniMax technology. But as reported by UploadVR, it is now seeking a new trial, saying that "the verdict is against the great weight of the evidence, [and] the damages award is excessive."
The filing also claims that the "spoliation testimony"—related to the alleged destruction of data, I would assume—and "adverse inference instruction" tainted the jury, the expert testimony was "unreliable and prejudicial," and "the jury's laches verdicts are irreconcilably inconsistent." The motion seeks a partial new trial for Oculus VR, as well as co-founders Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe, on the claim of false designation, and for Oculus alone on the second count of copyright infringement, and the third count of breach of contract.
Oculus said immediately after the verdict in February that it would appeal the ruling, claiming that "the heart of this case was about whether Oculus stole ZeniMax's trade secrets, and the jury found decisively in our favor." ZeniMax, naturally, saw things somewhat differently, and shortly after the end of the case filed for a permanent injunction that would prevent Oculus from benefiting in any way from the sale or use of copyrighted materials, including the system software, SDK, and Unreal and Unity engine integration—everything that makes the Rift actually work, in other words.
In a statement, ZeniMax maintained that despite Oculus' claim, the evidence strongly supports the ruling. "The jury verdict finding that Oculus and the other Defendants misappropriated our valuable VR technology, infringed copyrights, and breached legal contracts was supported by a mountain of evidence," it said. "We will be responding to the Defendants' motion in Court in due course."
That hasn't been the only drama to follow in the wake of the ruling: John Carmack filed his own lawsuit against ZeniMax in March for $22.5 million, and earlier this month Oculus revealed that Luckey is leaving the company.
