14 DAY TRIAL // Rock Revolution and Karaoke Revolution publisher Konami has just decided to end its ongoing legal dispute with Harmonix, the creator of music game franchise Rock Band.
Back in 2008, Konami, Japanese publisher of popular music and rhythm games like Rock Revolution, Karaoke Revolution and Dance, Dance Revolution, decided to take Harmonix to court over patent infringement.
Harmonix, creator of popular music game franchise Rock Band, as well as the original Guitar Hero, was accused of violating a pair of patents filed by Konami back in 2002 and 2003, that related to "simulated musical instruments, a music-game system and a musical-rhythm matching game."
Now, after quite a long legal battle between Konami, on one side, and Harmonix and Viacom, the owner and publisher of Rock Band, on the other, the dispute has been settled.
All of the companies involved have decided to dismiss "all claims and counterclaims" in the legal suit, thus ending the dispute over the alleged patent infringement.
The terms of the settlement were not revealed to the public.
Konami was responsible for several music games before the genre took off, including GuitarFreaks, DrumMania and other titles, all of which were released in its native Japan, in arcades.
These, according to Konami, were copied by Harmonix when the studio developed the original Guitar Hero and the Rock Band franchise, two titles that sparked a huge success for the music game genre.
The suit was extremely important back in 2008, when music video games were recording high sales.
Now, in 2010, when sales have dwindled due to the economic downturn, the legal battle was costing all of the companies involved too much money.
Harmonix's latest product was Rock Band 3, which introduced new elements including keyboard and a more realistic "learning mode", that promise to teach gamers how to play real life instruments.
Meanwhile, Konami has distanced itself from the music video game genre, with the latest title being Rock Revolution, which appeared in 2008.