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Konami Sues Harmonix Over Rock Band Patents
by David Jenkins
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July 11, 2008
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Japanese-headquartered publisher Konami has sued Rock Band developer Harmonix over alleged patent infringements with its range of rhythm action games and associated controllers.
Konami’s long-running Guitar Freaks and DrumMania series of titles feature similar gameplay to Rock Band and also use musical instrument shaped controllers. Konami also publishes a range of karaoke themed games, including the Karaoke Revolution series on consoles, which Harmonix has worked on in the past.
Harmonix’s first game to feature a proprietary controller was the original Guitar Hero in November 2005 and its unclear why Konami has only now disputed its patents.
However, according to a Bloomberg report, the patents in question date from 2002 and 2003 and relate to “simulated musical instruments”, a “music-game system” and a “musical-rhythm matching game”.
Gamasutra exclusively exposed some of the patent-related licensing between Konami and Activision in late 2007, done at the time for Guitar Hero III's release.
We noted at the time of that game's release: "Patent disputes and licenses such as this have major ramifications for the future of music games - and one area of particular interest might be how Harmonix/MTV's Rock Band deals with the same patents... Harmonix itself has several patents related to its music game history."
Konami’s demands include cash compensation and a court order blocking Harmonix and owner/publishers MTV Games from continuing to sell the products. MTV Games owners Viacom have not responded to the complaint at time of press.
Konami is planning to release its own Rock Band style title named Rock Revolution for home consoles, while Harmonix recently announced Xbox 360 timed exclusive Rock Band 2.
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It's obvious that Activision and Konami are now settled. That's history and that's why GH wasn't named.
The interesting thing about this case is that it involves Harmonix. First, I love Harmonix. I remember when Konami hired them to make KR. And I remember when Red Octane hired them to do GH. And I thought they could do no wrong. But I was always nervous for Rock Band because I thought that they took Konami's game and Red Octane's game and smashed them together. Which is awesome, but I never thought that they'd get away with it. So even though I don't know the behind-the-scenes stuff, I'm not surprised.
I recently went to Konami of america studios and had a meeting with there Product D team who is using DDR in school systems within west virginia. This exact same topic came up during the meeting because The company i work for share's a Patent infringment with a company i cant say on certain Peripherial technology in a new product.
The point is that Mr. Jenkins doesnt understand the exact reason my company is not going to act yet, There is no reason to act on Patent Infringment unless that infringment became such a huge beast that you couldnt do better.
Which leaves us at another Perspective, Is this a sign that Konami has lost faith in Rock Revolution?
I feel this lawsuit will hurt Konami in a sense that they are coming out and saying, Harmonix is King and we cant do better, so give us your money. But thats just my point of view.