It goes without saying that all innovative businesses should
make every effort to protect their trade secrets, especially if it
is a groundbreaking industry disruptive trade secret; however, this
can be more challenging than imagined. For example,
ZeniMax, the parent company of ID Software creators of Doom and
Quake games, had a partial win in their case against Oculus Rift,
Facebook’s virtual reality acquisition. Whilst serious
money changed hands in the direction of ZeniMax, in that the Texas
court ordered that the present CEO of Oculus, Palmer Luckey must
pay $50 million of the award for false designation, whilst the
former CEO Brendan Iribe must pay $150 million for the same
thing. Oculus must also pay $200 million for failing to
comply with the NDA and further $50 million for copyright
infringement with another $50 million for false
designation. Slightly puzzlingly, Oculus Rift/Facebook
was found innocent of the trade secret theft allegation.
