Japanese company Konami Corp. has sued Harmonix Music Systems, a video game developer and subsidiary of media mogul Viacom Inc. According to the lawsuit, filed yesterday in a federal court in Marshall, Texas, Harmonix’ famous title “Rock Band” violates a Konami patent. Konami owns patents issued in 2002 and 2003 for simulated musical instruments, music-game systems and a musical-rhythm matching game. Aside from the classic “Dance, Dance Revolution” titles that involved the dance pad, Konami is also responsible for its singing spinoff called “Karaoke Revolution,” which involved a mic. These two games were both big hits in the United States and are covered by the same patent. But the original Konami games with the most similarity with Rock Band are “Guitar Freaks” and “Drum Mania.” The picture below shows the corresponding arcade machines of the two games. These were first introduced in Japan in 1999 and were big hits there, before they were brought to other parts of the globe as imports. This was years before the patent was officially awarded to Konami.

The suit, which could spell disaster for the much anticipated sequel to Rock Band coming later this year, names Harmonix Music Systems, the studio’s owner Viacom Inc., and Viacom’s MTV Networks Co., which is Harmonix’ parent company. Aside from cash compensation, Konami is also asking for an order to stop Rock Band from using their inventions which causes further infringement. For those unfamiliar with the game Rock Band here is a brief refresher: Rock Band was first released in the United States for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 on November 20, 2007. The music video game allows players to… well… play simulated music instruments as counterparts of the game’s virtual band. The game - which is best played with four players - has three different peripherals modeled after typical band instruments: a guitar peripheral which can be used for both lead guitar and bass guitar simulation, a drum peripheral, and a microphone. Notes of the song are scrolled on the TV screen, which the players follow thru their peripherals. Aside from infringing a music gameplay that they invented, Konami also claims that these peripherals were copied from their Japanese arcade games. Not less than two months ago, MTV Networks Co., Harmonix Music Systems, and Electronice Arts (Rock Band’s distributor) were sued by the Gibson Guitar Corporation for violating another patent. The 1999 U.S. Patent 5,990,405, owned by Gibson, covers technology that simulates a concert performance via pre-recorded audio and a musical instrument. Gibson also sued another game, Rock Band’s main competitor, “Guitar Hero” for the same issue. Guitar Hero was also developed by Harmonix but was published by RedOctane and Activision. The game uses only the guitar peripheral, which they patterned from Gibson guitars. Harmonix reps revealed that the Guitar Hero series, which was released prior to Rock Band, was patterned to the aforementioned Japanese arcade hit Guitar Freaks by Konami – which was still on its way to North American soil. But Activision mentions the three above Konami patents in its Guitar Hero III homepage – leading us to believe that unlike Viacom, Activision has acquired a license from Konami to use its patented gameplay and instruments. It would be dumb for them to show the patent if they didn’t have the license to use it. But the important question to ask here is this… After all these years why only now? It’s worth noting that Konami will be releasing their own Rock Band-like game called “Rock Revolution,” coming out later this year. The game was developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 by Zoë Mode and by HB Studios for the Nintendo DS and Wii. It was the perfect time to file the case – putting a hold on Rock Band 2 which has been in development for so long. And now that Rock Band has made millions of dollars, Konami will be getting even more compensation for potential damages. According to Viacom spokeswoman Kelly McAndrew, the company is still to receive the formal complaint so they will not be making any comments regarding the issue until then.