RSSGibson to Activision: We made fake guitars first
By Tim Conneally | Published March 13, 2008, 2:11 PM
Guitar company Gibson has filed suit against Activision with regard to its Guitar Hero music simulator game, claiming it patented the idea first.
Activision, which makes the popular Guitar Hero music simulator series, had been working in close conjunction with guitar maker Gibson, making graphic representations of the company's classic axes available to your game's characters, and even modeling controllers after the SG, Les Paul, Flying V, and Explorer models.
Since January, however, Gibson has been pressuring Activision for violating a November 23, 1999 Gibson patent for virtual concert performance.
Gibson claims that in order for Activision to continue selling items in its Guitar Hero franchise, the game company must purchase a license from Gibson. Activision has disputed the validity of Gibson's claim.
The patent is for a virtual reality-style heads-up display playing video and audio from a pre-recorded performance, where the user connects an instrument and plays along.
While it may seem far-fetched upon initial inspection, it doesn't take much to see where Gibson could have grounds for this suit. The second claim in the patent refers to "The system...wherein the musical instrument is a guitar, whereby variations in striking of strings on the guitar by the user produces changes in level of the audio portion of the pre-recorded musical performance on the audio playback transducer."
While the Guitar Hero controller is not an actual musical instrument and furthermore lacks strings, the system of an incoming signal triggering a section of a pre-recorded performance is definitely present in both the patented concept as well as the game series.
"... claiming it patented the idea first."
Well, there's the first MAJOR problem. In theory (pre-business-process patents) you couldn't patent an IDEA.
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|No, you can't copywrite an idea, you can only copywrite the form an idea takes.
Although I thought you had to have a working prototype to patent an idea anyway, but I'm guessing I was wrong because there it at the patent office.
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|I'm sure that they'll flip out about this then...
http://www.guitarrising.com/
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|Ah yes, that makes so much sense it's not even funny. Awesome idea.
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|whereby variations in striking of strings on the guitar by the user produces changes in level of the audio portion of the pre-recorded musical performance on the audio playback transducer."
No strings on these guitars.
Sorry, Gibson, you fail.
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|I think you've nailed it.
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|If only the world worked the way you wanted it to PC_Tool
if only
But in reality the patent does have sufficent grounds to get a proper hearing and that is all it takes.
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|At which point, the lawyer for Activision needs only quote their patent, as I did.
Just because the initial Judge is a moron, doesn't negate the specificity of the wording in their patent.
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|As much as I admire a company like Gibson, this is a bunch of CRAP! They probably will file a suit claiming they have a Patent on the "Air Guitar" and sue the Stoner that first did it over in England (True Story: VH1 Had a Documentary)
Attention Gibson: You should be THANKING companies like Activision for making Guitar Hero for the simple reason if anything, they have BOOSTED your sales of guitars and sparked better interest. In a time were every station I turn on has a (C)RAP songs playing where I do not hear any guitars playing.
Look @ what "Rock Band" did for sales of online Tracks for the game: 2.5 Million songs purchased!!!
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