Gibson Accuses Guitar Hero of Patent Violation

robipilot writes "Video game publisher Activision Inc. has asked a federal court to declare that its popular "Guitar Hero" game does not violate a patent held by real-guitar maker Gibson Guitar Corp. Gibson's 1999 patent covers a virtual-reality device that included a headset with speakers that simulated participating in a concert, according to a complaint filed on Tuesday by Santa Monica, Calif.-based Activision in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles."

Comments

Patenting games

[CRCulver]

Couldn't the case be made that this concept is a game (who simulates participating in a concert for any reason other than entertainment?), and therefore multiple companies can realize the idea as long as they do not use terms and images from the first company?

Re:Patenting games

[cizoozic]

Couldn't the cases be made that:

• Guitar Hero has been out for years, what were they just waiting to see if there was some money to be made from a suit?
• The game is crammed full of Gibson everything, I mean the guitar store looks more like a Gibson Factory Store than a Guitar Center. I mean who knew what a Firebird VII even was before Guitar Hero? There can't be that many Johnny Winter fans out there.

Sorry, I know these are common sense arguments, so they probably have no place in a patent discussion.

Too bad Gibson didn't do anything with it

[hcdejong]

If they had published a game and associated hardware, we could have been hacking the Gibson by now...

Re:Too bad Gibson didn't do anything with it

[Anonymous Coward]

More or Less Paul?

Re:Took their time

[ohtani]

IANAL, but from my understanding, no it doesn't. Konami can continue to make drummania as is, for example, but apparently they cannot bring it to the US like they were hoping to do because MTV was awarded a patent for drumming games. MTV did have one in the arcade prior to Rock Band. But it just had no "game" feel to it from my understanding.

Re:Why did they wait this long?

[iknownuttin]

I mean, how long has Guitar Hero been around for anyways? ...I think I know the answer, and it pisses me off.

Gibson is run by really old guys. One day, one of them was being visited at their retirement home, where they run Gibson guitars from, by one of their college age great-grandchildren. He said great grandpa! I've been playing this awesome game called Guitar Hero! Grandpa put two and two together. He's seen the ads with that top hatted guy during TV night and was glad that he was playing a Gibson guitar. He realized it was one of the new fangled computer juke box thingys and immediately called his lawyer in the next room.

That's how it happened!

Re:Crucify me, baby

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Here's a link: the patent

From the patent..."audio" signal.

[ILuvSP]

From the patent...

1. A system for electronically simulating participation by a user in a pre-recorded musical performance comprising:

a. a musical instrument, the musical instrument generating an instrument audio signal at an instrument audio output, the instrument audio signal varying in response to operation of the instrument by the user of the system;

The guitars from Guitar Hero do not produce "audio" signal at an "instrument audio output". They are not musical instruments. I think Gibson is reaching here!

We're in real trouble

[SpaghettiPattern]

Before we know the next corporation patents "An imaginary environment for simulated participating in the act of making love".

Guys we're in real trouble here. We're all guilty. The young ones are particularly vounrable to offending the patent multiple times a day. (We older guys envy the young ones for the favorable frequency. But I digress.)

Re:Crucify me, baby

[Gr8Apes]

This looks like a classic poster boy for bad patents: the abstract indicates that Guitar Hero doesn't violate anything. First off, they explictly state musician. Guitar Hero players? Not hardly. Second, they state musical instrument. I don't think 4 buttons counts as an instrument. There are also no 3-D head gear, nor headphones involved.

If you start reading the claims, the entire thing falls apart at every level. First off - there's no instrument, and certainly no audio signal generated by the Guitar Hero "guitar", which appears to be the crux of their patent. Then again, IANAIP/PL (IP/Patent Lawyer).

I'm not even sure what exactly they're patenting here. There's no "System" that I can see, other than a very high level concept drawing and what looks like a basic high level distortion processor schematic. I was under the impression that "methods" like the abstract idea being described could not be patented.