Not long after serving Activision with papers alleging patent infringement for the Guitar Hero series of video games, Gibson Guitar Corp. has now decided to go after retailers that sell that game as well. In light of this news, Activision said the following;
“Our ‘Guitar Hero’ retailing partners have done nothing wrong. We will confront this and any other efforts by Gibson to wrongfully interfere with Activision’s relationship with its customers and its consumers.”
The bone of contention is a patent filed by Gibson back in 1999 for a head-mounted display that simulates the feeling of playing an instrument in a rock concert. More details can be found in our original post here but the biggest things that Gibson’s got going against it is that it’s been licensing its guitar designs to Activision for the Guitar Hero controllers and it just brought these lawsuits up now, even though the game’s been out for quite some time.
Gibson Guitar sues retailers over ‘Guitar Hero’ game [MarketWatch]