Oculus Rift (Photo : Reuters)
Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey is facing a lawsuit filed by his former employer, Total Recall Technologies, who is accusing him of not honoring the confidential agreement he signed while still working with the Hawaii-based company.
According to Reuters, Total Recall Technologies hired Luckey in 2011 to develop a prototype for a head mounted display similar with the Oculus Rift. During his tenure with the company, Luckey received feedback as well as valuable information in order to improve the head mounted display. However, Total Recall Technologies is accusing Luckey of using the information he learned while working with the company in order to support his own venture which he launched via a Kickstarter funding campaign.
The Kickstarter campaign raised $2.4 million from 9,000 backers. The campaign caught Facebook's attention and the social networking giant later acquired Oculus VR for a record breaking $2 billion deal in 2014. The deal was Facebook's first ever venture into the hardware market.
According to Polygon, Luckey signed an agreement with Total Recall Technologies to keep all the project details confidential. The court documents filed by Total Recall Technologies says, "Luckey took the information he learned from the Partnership, as well as the prototype that he built for the TRT [Total Recall Technologies] using design features and other confidential information and materials supplied by the Partnership, and passed it off to others as his own."
Total Recall Technologies is seeking for an unspecified amount in order to cover punitive damages. In 2014, ZeniMax Media also sued Oculus VR accusing Luckey of misappropriating computer codes and trade secrets.
