Gibson to Activision: We made fake guitars first

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.