Details of Gibson’s Lawsuit against Guitar Hero Retailers

Gibson Guitar Corp., based in Nashville, announced yesterday that it is suing several retailers who sell the popular Guitar Hero games.

Gibson filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Nashville on Monday essentially seeking royalties from Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart, Amazon.com, GameStop, and Toys R Us, on every Guitar Hero game sold.

Activision sent out a press release yesterday in response to Gibson’s recent request for compensation claiming that Guitar Hero infringes on a Gibson patent for creating a “simulated musical concert experience.” Activision says they believe that Gibson’s claims are “disingenuous and lack any justification”.

Gibson had earlier claimed that Guitar Hero violates a patent that Gibson had filed in 1999 for creating a “simulated musical concert experience.” Gibson told Activision to get a license or to stop selling Guitar Hero.

Activison responded to Gibson’s patent claim by filing in a California federal court, asking a jury to rule that Guitar Hero did not in fact infringe on Gibson’s patent.

“This is a poorly masked attempt to extort money from Activision,” said Michael Pachter, analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities. “They are using any way they can to have Activision write them a check.”

By filing a lawsuit against the retailers who are selling Guitar Hero, Gibson is likely trying to put pressure on Activision to settle.

From our perspective it seems strange that Gibson is only now suing Activision after the game has been out, and popular, for 3 years. Gibson surely must have known about the game. After all they have been in a partnership with Activision as their guitars have been the model for the guitar controllers bundled with every major release of Guitar Hero since the beginning.

Activision indications recently, that they no longer will be renewing their support and marketing agreements with Gibson, seem to us to be the real reason for the lawsuit. One might suspect that Gibson was enjoying an increase in sales due to the popularity of the Guitar Hero series.

Will Gibson be suing against Rock Band next?

Update: Gibson, in fact, now is suing “Rock Band”