Gibson Says it Holds a Patent for Guitar Hero

Activision Inc. the publisher of Guitar Hero III: The Legends of Rock and Gibson Guitars for all appearances must have a mutually beneficial relationship. After all, Activision publishes one of the most popular music games in the world, and has licensed the the classic Gibson guitar designs to use as controllers for the game including the SG, the Xplorer and the Les Paul. But according to Gibson, they should own the whole Guitar Hero franchise, after all they developed a concept and patented it in 1999.

Gibson filed U.S. Patent number 5990405 which describes a game-type device where a person could play a guitar with a pre-recorded concert with a head-mounted 3D display display which includes stereo speakers. The audio and video portions of the concert are on a separate sound track with the user/musician. The signals from the musician's instrument would go through a system interface box and redirect back to the playback device by way of an audio mixer to the head-mounted display. This way it sounds like the gamer is playing with the band in the concert.

After evaluating the patent, Gibson now believes that this patent is enough to either halt all sales of the Guitar Hero games including all of the expansion packs, or that the license must be obtained by Activision under Gibson's Patent. Of course Activision believes that the design of the Guitar Hero franchise is completely outside of the design of this patent and its attorneys have asked that a U.S. District Court deem the patent invalid.

Interestingly, Konami also had a similar music video game in 1999 called Guitar Freaks where a music game and peripherals first appeared. It was an arcade-style game that Activision licensed several of the patents from Konami for use with Guitar Hero III.

Gibson Says it Holds a Patent for Guitar Hero

Gibson has decided to sue Activision over a patent Gibson has held since 1999 which it says gives it all rights to the Guitar Hero franchise.