Gibson Guitars filed a lawsuit against Activision’s Guitar Hero game. It seems that Gibson owns a patent on technology simulating a live musical performance. They have insisted that Activision either license their patent, or cease selling any and all versions of the Guitar Hero game.

The funny thing about this lawsuit is that Gibson licensed the right to Activision to model their controller for the Guitar Hero after Gibson guitars. So Gibson knew about the game for the three years that it has been on the market, but did not file a patent lawsuit until Guitar Hero made over 1 billion dollars from sales of guitar Hero.

What is next? Is Gibson going to bring lawsuits against every eight year old kid who pretends that his mother’s broom is a guitar and that he is a start jamming with his favorite band? Sounds kind of silly, but I bet my great grandmother thought a broom was a new technology. Could this be considered a “technology” to simulate a live musical performance?

I find this to be unlikely since most eight year old children do not have enough money for Gibson to go after, but on the other hand maybe they will go after only the children who have wealthy parents. I we should urge our children to stick with air guitar, since open air is not patented, or considered a technology…….. Or is it?

Note to Gibson: We love your guitars. Can you please just concentrate on making a great guitar and leave everyone else alone. If you continue to build a great guitar, we will buy them. If I was Activision, I would call Fender and PRS and license the right to make my controllers in the image of their guitars. I am sure they would be more than happy with the money and the exposure they would receive.

News Article:

http://www.news.com/Gibson-Activisions-Guitar-Hero-violates-patent/2100-1043_3-6234177.html

Gary Allen

I sometimes wonder just how many people in top management positions at musical instrument manufacturers know about the products their companies make. Of course in smaller companies this is not as big of an issue because the owner or President is often times very involved in the production aspects. In larger companies however, it seems that more management positions deal with administration, and less with the actual instrument production.

At the NAMM show in January we were visiting the Taylor Guitars booth. We asked if we could shoot a short video with someone talking about a couple of the new guitars they were showing. To our surprise they brought in non other than Bob Taylor himself. Mr. Taylor had not idea we were going to do this, so he pretty much sat down with a couple of guitars and just talked about them. This ended up being among the best video footage we have ever shot. Bob knew these guitars well, and spoke with authority on them. This video was not edited in any way, but is rather a straight up improvisation. It is very clear from this video that Bob Taylor is very much involved with not only his company, but also with the guitars they produce.

We were able to talk to Bob for a few minutes after the video. Mr. Taylor is a class act, yet comes across as a humble and extremely nice guy. I hope that we can get some video footage of Bob Taylor speaking about more guitars next January.

Gary Allen