Facebook loses $ 5 billion virtual reality status of Oculus

A US court after Facebook and other defendants have identified a company that uses virtual reality technology in a way contrary to the law of 500 million dollars (395 million pounds) ordered payments.

Jury Facebook game developer Oculus bought in 2014 using the computer code owned by ZeniMax has detected the launch of its virtual reality device.

Oculus "disappointed" and said he would appeal the decision.

The case threatened with Facebook and shadows of the final result showed that the end of this year strong to live.

Facebook's net profit doubled to $ 3.6 billion in the fourth quarter.

Social networking, advertising helped by a 53% revenue growth and said moving towards the first half of 2017 to reach 2 billion users.

"Trade secrets"

The results shortly before the appearance of the court after three weeks of trial authorities Facebook, ZeniMax damage the Oculus and Oculus.

ZeniMax, when the own rate of change of the earpiece Oculus Rift, with the argument that the first innovations in the virtual reality can copy of illegal way.

ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman, the jury in our Dallas District Court case, for accused our copyright and trademark in our illegal way, violates We are delighted that ZeniMax to save $ 500 million, "He said.

He was determined to make a confidentiality agreement with the co-founder of Oculus Palmer Luckey'n the company.

However, the jury decided that the misuse of any of the accused the trade secrets of ZeniMax.

Analysis

Luckeyımag founder palmer's eyeglass copyrightgetty IMAGES

Dave Lee, BBC correspondent technology in North America

There are few people who are going to do, Mark Zuckerberg Palmer Luckey a lot of headache.

When 24-year-old Facebook and Oculus VR founded the company $ 2 billion company intervened to buy really rewarded. Then it went a little way downhill.

First, this is a fraction of the money used to fund a campaign in favor of Donald Trump and campaign on Facebook seemed to lead to the emergence of public opinion. Last year he was not even at the developer conference of his company.

And now a jury, unless an appeal Facebook decided to break the confidentiality agreement suffered a loss of 500 million dollars.

Mark Zuckerberg does not wake up feeling too much - but he would be wondering how this act behind closed doors.

Exactly, a Facebook employee is still there, but the work done by Palmer Luckey is not an unknown - the company does not even know me job title.

An Oculus spokesman said: "The heart of this case, the ZeniMax Oculus of violating trade secrets and a jury in a stable manner on what we find in our favor."

Company did not comment on a $ 500 million damage.

CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, last month, "Oculus products is based on the false idea that the technology of others," confirmed.

With software developer Identification of the ZeniMax video game, Facebook sued for $ 2 billion.

In addition to the accusations against Palmer Luckey, one of the founders of John Carmack administrations omecos the full-time technology, the idea of ​​ZeniMax later decided to join Oculus in charge claimed the right to property.

'Quarter stars'

Virtual reality, Facebook is only a small part of the company today, but are important factors for the company's strategy for the next 10 years.

Facebook revenues in the fourth quarter - increased by 54% to $ 27.6 billion - most of the reach, came from ads on the social network.

CCS Insight analyst Martin Garner, "Facebook revenue record, there was no other quarter star growth and profitability that allows users and provides an online migration of advertising," he said.

"But advertising growth to wait for the slowdown in 2017, so expect this year to be less profitable," he said.

False news

Other Facebook challenges will face this year, the shift in focus on privacy in Europe, the United States is in an uncertain business environment and challenges in China, Garner said.

Some users complained that the false news about the platform after the impact of the presidential election in the United States was strongly criticized in social networks.

In interviews with analysts on Wednesday officials, Facebook, even through the use of artificial intelligence, showed that to overcome the problem.

In addition, most new Facebook users, telecom operators in India had to offer traffic