Oculus VR Founder Accused of Fraud by Total Recall Technologies
The founder of the Facebook-owned Oculus VR and his company are being sued by the Hawaii-based Total Recall Technologies.
In a lawsuit filed last week, Total Recall Technologies is accusing Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey of taking their work and using it for the Rift VR headset, Engadget reports. Luckey is being accused of breaking a confidentiality agreement he signed back when he was a former member of Total Recall Technologies four years ago. The Oculus VR executive was hired by Total Recall to develop a head-mounted display. The complaint states that he used the information and feedback of Recall's headset in the development of the head-mounted display used in the Oculus Rift.
According to the complaint filed in California's U.S. District Court, Luckey is being accused for a "breach of contract and wrongful exploitation and conversion of [Total Recall Technologies] intellectual and personal property in connection with TRT's development of affordable, immersive, virtual reality technology."
Just one year ago, ZeniMax Media filed a lawsuit against Oculus VR. ZeniMax claimed that game development legend John Carmack allegedly stole its own VR-related pertinent, copyrighted and intellectual property, and brought it over to Oculus VR.
The point of working in various areas of an industry is that you learn how to do things and if you go to a new job you have an improved set of skills and a deeper sense of knowledge; you don't just unlearn things going from one job to the next. We have a feeling these companies are just trying to get a piece of that $2 billion acquisition money Oculus VR got when they were acquired by Facebook.
Stay tuned as we'll provide up-to-date coverage on this story, including any official responses made by Luckey or his team at Oculus VR. The consumer version of the Oculus Rift is expected to launch in early 2016. Oculus VR has a special event coming on June 11 to make some big announcements just a few days prior to E3 2015.