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Comment by Demiurge | Hacker News Reader

>Carmac worked on Oculus at id's office, during work hours, using id resources. Oculus promoted their product using id games. At every step, id (and hence ZeniMax) provided technical assistance.

He also worked from home, on weekends, and from hotel, when he wants to be uninterrupted. Who knows if he billed (his own, historically) company for that? The point is, he really didn't have to, and ZeniMax is playing a 'gotcha' game.

>Really, this doesn't strike me as a particularly bad case, and reading their lawsuit filing, not inappropriate for them to file a lawsuit after failing to have a settlement reached with Oculus to pay for the technology.

I agree, they probably have a decent case, but it's not any less sad to see.

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> He also worked from home, on weekends, and from hotel, when he wants to be uninterrupted. Who knows if he billed (his own, historically) company for that? The point is, he really didn't have to, and ZeniMax is playing a 'gotcha' game.

Not true. See my previous question and discussion on this topic at the link below. If you sign a contract with a large company which has a clause that they own ip you create while working for them belongs to them (which is very common), you are out of luck.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7589822

You are indeed out of luck if you sign such a contract, which is why it's so important to refuse to sign any such contract. If you're hard up for money (been there), it might seem crazy to risk not getting a job by complaining about the contract you're about to sign, but trust me, the employers are usually more than happy to carve out a clause for you. They want you working for them more than they want to assert dominance over you.

See my other reply for page cites and details, but it seems that ZeniMax was actively pursuing VR technology and that Carmac was part of that project prior to his work on Oculus.

If I work for money developing a certain kind of technology, it's reasonable for my employer to think I won't give my work project over to another company and that they have some claim to that technology.

Well, this is the first I hear of ZeniMax actively pursuing VR. I'm curious to know what you're basing this on. From what John Carmac said, he has personally been interested in VR since 90s, not ZeniMax.

The thing is, we can't talk legalese and English at the same time. By law, ZeniMax might own everything and its history, if they own 51% of it. But by causality, they might have played no part in its creation. This is why they might have a legal case, (unless they did, in fact, instigated VR R&D, as opposed to just buy share of [id]) but they don't have my goodwill.

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