Mark Zuckerberg to appear in court as Facebook face VR theft claims

Facebook is being taken to court by video game tech firm Zenimax Media after allegedly stealing the company's Virtual Reality gaming technology, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg due to appear in front of a hearing in Dallas on Tuesday.

The case involves Facebook's 2014 acquisition of Oculus and its construction of its own VR headset, which Zenimax claim was unlawfully copied by the companies.

The litigation case sees Zenimax, the company which owns games software system id Software is demanding Facebook to cough up $2bn.

A spokesperson for Oculus said in an emailed statement that it denied the allegations and criticised Zenimax for bringing the case against them.

"Oculus and its founders have invested a wealth of time and money in VR because we believe it can fundamentally transform the way people interact and communicate," the statement read.

"We're disappointed that another company is using wasteful litigation to attempt to take credit for technology that it did not have the vision, expertise, or patience to build."

Zenimax's case centres around games designer John Carmack, who was at one time working for both Oculus and id Software, which he co-founded. It alleges that Carmack "secretly and illegally copied thousands of documents containing ZeniMax's intellectual property", according to court papers.

The company's lawyer Tony Sammi described it as "one of the biggest technology heists ever".