ZeniMax suing Samsung over VR tech after winning lawsuit against Facebook's Oculus

ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda, Doom developer id Software and Dishonored creator Arkane, is suing Samsung over its Gear VR headset. The new lawsuit comes just months after ZeniMax successfully sued Facebook's Oculus and won $500m (£387.2m) in damages.

In the earlier lawsuit, ZeniMax claimed that id Software co-founder John Carmack, who eventually became CTO of Oculus, stole thousands of lines of source code from the company before he left in 2013. It also accused Oculus and its founder Palmer Luckey of "commercially exploiting" ZeniMax's computer code and trade secrets to develop its VR products.

Oculus was found guilty of copyright infringement, breaking a non-disclosure agreement and misuse of trademarks. It was found innocent of other charges such as theft of trade secrets.

The new lawsuit, filed on Friday, 12 May in Dallas federal court, claims that Samsung's Gear VR headset is based on ZeniMax's intellectual property, which was developed at the company and later misappropriated by Carmack.

The complaint argues that Samsung "which had desired to release a mobile VR headset and sell greater quantities of its mobile devices" knowingly used and profited from ZeniMax tech and trade secrets since it relies on Oculus software.

ZeniMax claims that Samsung should have been aware of the lawsuit against Oculus when it was first filed in 2014.

"Samsung knows, or reasonably should know, that the Samsung Gear VR - a product marketed as being 'powered by Oculus' is based upon ZeniMax's intellectual property and includes information obtained by Samsung from Oculus, Luckey, and Carmack in violation of the NDA, ZeniMax's copyrights and Carmack's employment agreement.

It adds Samsung still continued to develop its Gear VR and even released an updated version of the headset "with full knowledge of ZeniMax's allegations and without obtaining any right or permission from ZeniMax to use any of its copyrights or other confidential information."

The suit also alleges that Carmack secretly brought Matt Hooper, a former ZeniMax employee and current Oculus employee, into id Software's offices after hours in 2013 to "talk about Oculus" and develop and "attack plan" for mobile VR that they would later take to Samsung.

ZeniMax is seeking damages, profits from sales of "infringing works" and "use of trade secrets", reasonable royalties, injunctive relief, punitive and exemplary damages, court costs, attorney fees and interests.

Meanwhile, Carmack filed a lawsuit against his former employer ZeniMax for $22.5m over alleged unpaid earnings. In February, ZeniMax filed an injunction against Oculus VR to stop sales of the Rift and any associated software.