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: The Patent Prospector

Guitar Zero

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

High from whiffing its own fumes of patent power, guitar maker Gibson threatened, and then sued, retailers selling Activision's Guitar Hero video game. Activision had the vision to activate a declaratory judgment action. Sizzling with the right riffs, the judge in the case late last week rocked Gibson's patent potential into the boneyard, as the patent only applies to analog output, the judge decided. "As a general observation, no reasonable person of ordinary skill in the relevant arts would interpret the '405 patent as covering interactive video games." Under Gibson's construction, Central California Judge Mariana Pfaelzer noted, the claims could apply to pressing a "button of a DVD remote... to a pencil tapping a table." Rock on....

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on March 03, 2009 (boomark / email).