Viacom In Hot Water: Konami Sues Over Rock Band
I don't know if I've ever spoken about patent law. My general general opinion is that it was created to protect small inventors from being trampled by big business. Unfortunately, the opposite generally occurs thanks to the price and extreme hoops one has to jump through in order to make a patent. Now only large corporations are usually the purveyors of these magical pieces of legal witchcraft, usually creating sweeping general "inventions" that encompass nearly every facet of a market, creating a hostile anti-competitive market. Don't even get me started on software patents.
Konami is suing Viacom! That's right, apparently Konami holds some patents on things that Rock Band does. Am I shocked? No, the title clones many of the game play mechanics used in titles that Konami had a originally put stock into, not to mention they essentially pioneered the rhythm and dance genre.
Konami is seeking to gain financial compensation, and is pressing for an order to block Viacom and Harmonix the use of the inventions that Konami has patents for. If the order gets passed, this could mean bad news for the all parties involved.
My question is why now. Konami has to be well aware of the existence of Rock Band for over a year now, maybe even more. It seems a stretch that they were simply "unaware" that the game was "infringing on their rights", and it's not like they don't have some massive legal team on retainer. My guess is that they are trying to squash the release of Rock Band 2, which would create a wider market for their upcoming Rock Revolution. Either way, I'm pulling for you, Harmonix.
Konami Sues Viacom Over `Rock Band' Music Video Game (Update2) [Bloomberg.com]
Asterick
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 11 July 2008
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: activision, harmonix. mtv, konami, lawsuit, petty, rockband, viacom
That, Viacom, is what we call karma...
While I couldn't give a crap about Rock Band, I will say good one for Konami.
After Viacom's bollocking of Youtube they deserve to be on the other end of a lawsuit.
All I have to say is, if Harmonix infringed their rights, Konami has every right to sue. Activision was smart enough to ask for permission.
The other piece is that you want to wait for the "patent theifs" product to become commercially viable before you sue because you need to be able to show their product has caused reasonable loss sales.
I agree in general, though, that patent trolling is getting ridiculous. However, patent abuse by mega-corporations is still a problem.
I, also, am going to have to throw my support behind Konami. They did in fact pioneer the way for rhythm games and rightfully so have patented several aspects of them. They have worked very closely with Harmonix in the past, and it's stunning that no deal was ever made.
As far as Konami having "all this time" it's likely that they had a legal team on it from the get go, but did not proceed with the lawsuit until they had sufficient evidence to at least take this to court.
This is Konami we're talking about, they don't have anything to be worried about with anyone, but they certainly don't like profit-loss...who would?