Gamertell

After a long collaboration between the two companies on the very successful Guitar Hero franchise, in January 2008 Gibson Guitar Corp. filed a law suit against Activision Inc. for patent infringement claiming it has a patent for a system that simulates a concert experience and playing a virtual instrument. The suit asks for Activison to either stop manufacturing all components of the Guitar Hero video game or to pay a license fee for the system.

Earlier this week, Activision filed a lawsuit to complain to the Superior Court in California, claiming Gibson’s patent is invalid and the guitar maker has for a long time known about and supported the manufacturing of Activision’s guitar shaped controllers which are all shaped after Gibson guitars.

This sounds like a really low blow by Gibson. Since the first Guitar Hero game, they have been featured as the company behind all the guitars in the game and even the controllers have Gibson’s logo on them. It’s difficult to understand how they could have collaborated in the creation of the controllers, provided logos and designs for the game and then state that they have a system that does the same thing and ask for royalties.
Activision has been really successful with the Guitar Hero franchise and it looks like Gibson wanted a bigger piece of the pie. It’s clear that they knew all about the product and it’s success and they just stumbled with a way of sucking money from Activision. The fact that someone can ask for money in a case like this really hurts the justice system and as much as I respect Gibson as an instrument manufacturer I hope they lose the case. 

On a brighter side, I guess it’s time for Activision to chose a different brand in guitars so that means we might be getting cooler designs and controllers shaped like ESPs or Deans are on their way. 

Read [Reuters] Also read [Gamespot]

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