Guitar Hero III: game patents, effects pending

Gamasutra recently held an investigation of the legal concerns surrounding Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii), namely the patents that set the game’s legal boundaries.

According to their findings, Activision has entered into an agreement with Konami to secure certain patents. Aside from the agreement, Activision has also purchased certain patents from John R. Devecka, president of the company who created the MTV Drumscape arcade machine.

The patents were discovered on the game’s loading screen and they relate to the use of the game’s methods, apparatus, even down to how the system saves the game. When they were asked to comment on the purchases and agreement, Activision gave the immortal line, “We cannot comment.”

Upon consulting Gregory Boyd, a lawyer who specializes in the video game industry, he explains that while we can be sure that the licenses were covered by agreements and purchases, we cannot know how they were actually acquired:

One cannot tell if money changed hands, if there were threats of litigation, or if there was a cross-licensing agreement. All of these are common, but impossible to tell from the publicly available information.

While the short term significance of the agreement and the purchases are unclear right now, we can be sure that they will have long term effects in the legal arena of future music games. Other companies who may want to make their own variations of the popular game may have to go through Activision first.

Via Gamasutra

Gamasutra recently held an investigation of the legal concerns surrounding Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii), namely the patents that set the game’s legal boundaries.

According to their findings, Activision has entered into an agreement with Konami to secure certain patents. Aside from the agreement, Activision has also purchased certain patents from John R. Devecka, president of the company who created the MTV Drumscape arcade machine.

The patents were discovered on the game’s loading screen and they relate to the use of the game’s methods, apparatus, even down to how the system saves the game. When they were asked to comment on the purchases and agreement, Activision gave the immortal line, “We cannot comment.”

Upon consulting Gregory Boyd, a lawyer who specializes in the video game industry, he explains that while we can be sure that the licenses were covered by agreements and purchases, we cannot know how they were actually acquired:

One cannot tell if money changed hands, if there were threats of litigation, or if there was a cross-licensing agreement. All of these are common, but impossible to tell from the publicly available information.

While the short term significance of the agreement and the purchases are unclear right now, we can be sure that they will have long term effects in the legal arena of future music games. Other companies who may want to make their own variations of the popular game may have to go through Activision first.

Via Gamasutra