Konami sues over Rock Band

[hoochan]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

The problem isn't the fine. Konami wants Harmonix to ALSO stop producing and stop using the "inventions" that Harmonix is using. This will affect Rock Band 2 and possibly cancel the whole game itself, and I'm very sure that many fans won't be happy over this.

GHWT is going to be a better game anyway.

ohs noes no paramore im so sadddenz ;_;

The only reason people would buy RB2 would be for the music (which isn't fun to play anyway because a lot of it is easy ****).

[Beethovens mask]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

I think Konami is still trying to get over Ridge Racer.

[Shashakiro]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

OK, read up on it a little bit since I was curious...it's definitely true that the court can rule a patent invalid after the fact regardless of whether the patent office accepted the claim or not.

So I'll go back to what I said earlier...the RB side, if they intent to go to court, will almost certainly attempt to invalidate the patents. No idea if it'll work, but there's definitely a precedent for it (for a specific example...the reason that there is no one company with a patent on "the computer" is that this happened...they had one and the court killed it once they sued someone over it).

And hoochan...Afro pretty clearly stated about a million times in his post that he understood that Konami has a patent on exactly what you just said, his entire post was more of a rant on how ridiculous it is that they're allowed to have such a patent.

[Afrobean]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

Obviously you don't even understand what they are being sued over. Konami patented the entire "click a button to match a coordinated key coming on the screen" idea. Basically, they patented the entire idea of a rhythm game.

I don't understand? YOU don't understand, loser. The problem is that they think they can own a genre.

What don't you understand?

**** you, asshole. I understand the whole thing and you clearly didn't even read it (not that I blame you, frankly, I would have skipped it too).

PS-I guarantee you that if monopolies were legal, no one but Konami would be making these games. Why the hell would they leave room for competition when its unneeded and they can control the entire market?

Hi, jackass, monopolies are bad, and competition is good. A company should not be able to own an entire genre. What if everytime a FPS was made, they had to get permission from the person who made the first FPS? Sure, when FPS first came out, it was "an original" idea, but look at all the FPS on the market now. It was the hardware that was holding these sort of things back (can you imagine a FPS on NES?). Not like you could make a very good music rhythm game on NES (although, hey what do you know, there is one and it used a system much like the one patented oops lol).

ps yes i know miracle piano probably doesn't issue you a graded score, but rock band is limited to a binary identification on whether the note was hit or not as well

[hoochan]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

Alright, clearly I didn't put my intentions into the post clearly. I'm stating that it's done and all your whiny bitching won't change it. I never said I supported it.

Also, you don't understand what I mean by the whole monopolies thing. I don't know how much more clearly I can state it, so I'm just dropping it.

[Afrobean]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

Alright, clearly I didn't put my intentions into the post clearly. I'm stating that it's done and all your whiny bitching won't change it. I never said I supported it.

My complaints being ineffective at solving the problem does not remove my right to complain.

Also, you don't understand what I mean by the whole monopolies thing. I don't know how much more clearly I can state it, so I'm just dropping it.

No, you said it quite right. I, however, countered it by pointing out that monopolies are the worst thing possible for the consumer. The company might make more money if they're all that's available, but the consumer will be getting a subpar product at a premium price.

[Revamp]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

The problem is that if Konami controlled the whole market, their whole sales would go down. No one is forced to buy their products or from the genre itself. People can still play the old games. It's just going to hurt Konami in the long run.

It's true that money is the route of all evil. I mean damn things were f***in awesome when there were games that wasnt out to make a quick dollar. Now you get all teh crappy games and they eventually get tossed in the trash. If a dollar is not backed by anything (i.e precious metals) *cough* U.S. Dollar *cough* then it's just worthless paper governing millions of lives.

[Squeek]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

Oh my god you all still don't get it.

Even with a patent on the concept of rhythm games, they don't "own" the market! We've had several games that aren't from Konami over the years use the concept of matching patterns to buttons on a controller in time with the music and they haven't been sued!

Harmonix forgot to honor the patent Konami has on this type of game and they're going to get sued for it. It's up to the judge as to whether or not this infringement is enough to halt production of RB2 and halt sales of RB1. Want my opinion? It won't.

The plaintiff in a court case always asks for much, much more than they really want, because the judge will always lower their demands.

And Afro, there are patents covering much worse things, so don't even try to make it seem like Konami's patent is too broad.

Ever play Crazy Taxi? Ever notice the giant green arrow on the top of the screen telling you where to go? That's patented.

Using a knob on a video game controller? Patented. Regardless of intent for use.

Battle engines wherein you fight multiple enemies? Patented. (Dynasty Warriors. Ever wonder why there are no other games in this genre?)

Rumble using small, triangular stacks of heavy metal rotating around an axis? Patented. (Immersion)

Wireless controllers? Patented.

Slow / Auto controllers? Patented.

HUD? Patented.

[CypherToorima]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

I hate everyone that posted in this thread.

[Relambrien]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

Battle engines wherein you fight multiple enemies? Patented. (Dynasty Warriors. Ever wonder why there are no other games in this genre?)

What exactly does this entail? Because I know God Hand allows you to fight multiple enemies at once in a beat-em-up style just like in Dynasty Warriors. Granted, you can only -target- one enemy at a time in God Hand, but you can hit more than one at once. And if I remember correctly, you can't really target things in Dynasty Warriros.

Not an accusation or anything, I'm just wondering. I'm curious as to how far patents can legally go.

[Squeek]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

What exactly does this entail? Because I know God Hand allows you to fight multiple enemies at once in a beat-em-up style just like in Dynasty Warriors. Granted, you can only -target- one enemy at a time in God Hand, but you can hit more than one at once. And if I remember correctly, you can't really target things in Dynasty Warriros.

Not an accusation or anything, I'm just wondering. I'm curious as to how far patents can legally go.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,729,954.PN.&OS=PN/6,729,954&RS=PN/6,729,954

I can't read these things.

[Shashakiro]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

Battle engines wherein you fight multiple enemies? Patented. (Dynasty Warriors. Ever wonder why there are no other games in this genre?)

What? I've played several games like this (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and the God of War series), and I'm sure there are more. Source please.

[Squeek]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

What? I've played several games like this (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and the God of War series), and I'm sure there are more. Source please.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...S=PN/6,729,954

I can't read these things.

Once again people, since most of you seem to not be able to grasp this concept:

Just because something is patented doesn't make it a monopolistic market. A patent means someone pays you to use your idea or gets sued if they steal it. An example that I've stated too many times already is Guitar Hero. Activision paid Konami to use their patent on the music-rhythm game genre and their idea for a guitar-shaped input device. Once that was taken care of, Guitar Hero was Activision's own product and no more money needed to be shipped Konami's way.

[Relambrien]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

Well Squeek, you said "Ever wonder why there aren't any other games in this genre?"

I understand the concept of patent != monopoly, and have since the beginning of this thread. It just seemed like a very strange statement considering there are in fact, many games in the multiple-enemy beat-em-up genre, and I was wondering what that was about. That's all =\

[Squeek]

Re: Konami sues over Rock Band

Dynasty Warriors' genre is completely different from every example I've seen in this thread.

A character group battle method which can express uneven distribution of attack power, defense strength or the like that is unevenly distributed in a group comprising a plurality of characters is provided. Within a predetermined time period, the position of each character in a 3-dimensional virtual space is calculated, the character number of other friend characters existing in a predetermined region about the character is calculated (S304), an attack value and a defense value expressing the attack power and the defense strength of the character are calculated on the basis of the character number (S310, S312), and a color correction value is calculated for changing color tone of the character according to the attack value (defense value) (S314).

I can't read legal nuance but it seems to me the idea is to have a somewhat random stat generation going on among every enemy on screen in a 3-D environment. Most games with multiple enemies at once are all just clones of each other.

I said before, I cannot read this stuff and I don't claim to be an expert. I do know that I have never seen a game that is even remotely like Dynasty Warriors and the reason is probably because of this patent.