Interesting news came out of San Francisco this past weekend when U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that a breach of contract claim brought by Total Recall Technologies (TRT) could proceed against Palmer Luckey and his company, founder of the highly publicized virtual reality technology company Oculus VR, Inc. after it was bought by Facebook back in 2014 for a whopping $2 billion dollars.
The companies most well known technology is its virtual reality glasses which places users inside a virtual world, which many commentators have predicted, is the future of entertainment. Facebook certainly seems to think so. While this may not have been the greatest news for Luckey, the founder was able to avoid a number of other civil suits from TRT and another company including fraud and a breach of confidentiality agreement. Judge Alsup dismissed all the other claims against Luckey.
The dispute arose in 2011 when TRT alleges they hired Luckey to develop a head mounted technology similar to the technology that Facebook bought 2014. TRT complaint states that Luckey signed a confidentiality agreement and, after receiving notes to improve the technology, used the information TRT gave him to create the billion dollar Oculus Rift technology.
Reuters reported that Luckey claims the lawsuit is “a brazen attempt to secure for itself a stake in Oculus VR’s recent multi-million billion dollar acquisition by Facebook”.
It may be safe to say Luckey got lucky, but the full legal battle is set to be take place in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. See Total Recall Technologies vs. Palmer Luckey and Oculus VR, Inc., 15-2281.
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