Hey,rememberwhen Konami tried to sue Harmonix and Viacom last July over patents for musical instrument peripherals? Now this is happening —Bloombergis reporting that Viacom and Harmonix are suing Konami, saying that their gameRock Revolutionviolates patents for musical instrument peripherals.
Yeah.
The complaint was filed yesterday in a federal court in Boston, home-base of Harmonix Music Systems. The complaint seeks to stop the sales ofRock Revolution, plus cash compensation. Considering the profits from sales ofRock Revolutionwould hardly cover the cost of anE.T. the Extraterrestrial videogame-like pit to bury the remaining copies of the game, one can estimate Viacom and Harmonix stand to gain somewhere in the range of $34.79 here.
According to the Bloomberg report, the Viacom patent (filed last December) on the instruments claims that it improved on early videogame music controllers, citingBeatmaniaas an example of older inventions. Hard to argue there — have you guys seen those big woodenGuitar Freaksarcade controllers? Yikes.
We’ll be watching this one closely, if only because the whole situation is headed in an “LOL funny” direction we wouldn’t want to miss.
