If there has been one thing I have learned from my patent writing father, it is that the patent system in the United States is one of the most laborious and minutial beasts in the world. He has told me about how lawyers have to fight what seems like endless battles to settle intellectual property disputes and create new patents. Luckily for Guitar Hero junkies, this little chat with Gibson about infringing on their patent should be nothing complicated for Activision and other interested parties. If judges determining the case have ever seen a real guitar, especially a Les Paul, they will affirm Activision’s request to declare the patent invalid under Gibson’s assertion.
Sure, on the surface it may seem as if Gibson has a point about patenting a “simulated concert experience” and Guitar Hero being just that, but the patent is very detailed in what this experience entails. My father explained to me that the claims are where the case gets determined, so allow me to list a couple. Firstly, claim 3 reads, “wherein the musical instrument is a guitar whereby variations in striking of strings on the guitar by the user produces changes in the level of the audio portion of the pre-recorded musical performance”. Secondly, claim 15 states, “wherein the musical instrument is a guitar”. Now, I play guitar and can tell you from first hand experience that Gibson knows exactly what a guitar is because they make some of the highest quality in the world. This highly revered company in the industry knows the plastic controller used in this game is precisely not anything close to a guitar. And if they wanted to stipulate that anything in the likeness of a guitar cannot be used then that’s exactly what they should have done, but they didn’t. Instead, they very specifically talked about how the strings would be used and diagramed a clear sketch of an electric guitar.
Does Gibson really believe that they are going to fool anybody into thinking that they were talking about anything other than a fully functioning guitar in their description? They are an instrument maker that guitarists know fully focus on their guitars and customize them perfectly to enhance the player’s usability and sound. The only reason they would create such an invention would be to complement that coveted Gibson playing experience using a real guitar, not to replace ebony fretboards with some cheap imitation made of colored buttons.
The facts just seem to point towards Gibson trying to get more of a piece of the pie in the Guitar Hero phenomenon. Their assertion of creating Guitar Hero just doesn’t add up to their image and purpose. Without a doubt the idea was close, but there are too many discrepancies that Gibson needs to admit to themselves and all the people who believe that a game controller can have any valid resemblance to a real Flying-V.
-George the Opinionated One
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