Rock Band 2

[Afrobean]

Squeek, your rumble example is totally different. What Konami has done is tandamount to if the original rumbling company had simply made a patent on "handheld input device with vibrating capability", and no matter what Nintendo or Microsoft or Sony did, if they made a controller that rumbled, it'd be an infringement. Like you said, it's possible to create a controller that rumbles without using the same idea as the original, but it's not possible to create a instrument-centric game such as Rock Band without apparently infringing on Konami's patent.

ps thanks for the wikipedia article:

Patents may hinder innovation as well in the case of "troll" entities. A holding company, pejoratively known as a "patent troll", owns a portfolio of patents, and sues others for infringement of these patents while doing little to develop the technology itself. [13]

When was the last time Konami released a US instrument centric rhythm game? I guess you could call BMUS, but is that really an instrument?

pps after some digging, I found something ****EN HILARIOUS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DrumMania

Konami has not mass produced an American version of DrumMania, primarily since MTV Games holds the US patent for "drum simulation games", which MTV took full advantage of with the release of Rock Band.

That's a mind**** if I ever heard one.