Re: patents on Frets on Fire, Pydance, StepMania and such games

["Joe Smith" <unknown_kev_cat@hotmail.com>]

"Don Armstrong" <don@debian.org> wrote in message 
[🔎] 20080119014257.GE13670@volo.donarmstrong.com">news:[🔎] 20080119014257.GE13670@volo.donarmstrong.com...
> On Fri, 18 Jan 2008, Joe Smith wrote:
> > That is not sheet music, but more of a raw storage of notes,
> > timings, and durations (not too unlike a midi file).
>
> What else is sheet music but a storage form of notes, timings and
> durations?

I agrue that sheet music differs significantly from midi files,
although it is generaly possible to generate one from the other with a 
reasonable
level of accuracy.
Basically, AIUI that requirement is about a machine readable representation
of the notes, etc. I will agree that at least some sheet music creation 
software must store
data in a format that qualifies.


> > But the key here is that this specifies that the interface must have
> > two different types of controls. One that must be pressed with the
> > correct timing (the strum bar on a Guitar Hero controler) as well as
> > selection buttons that need not be pushed with exact timing, but
> > need only be pushed in the right combination when the timing control
> > is pushed.
>
> So you have an instrument which has to preselect a note, and another
> which much be pressed with exact timing. Most wind instruments satisfy
> that requirement.

True enough. However, to find prior art for this claim would likely require
we find a "game system" which shows players some form of sheet music 
representation
of data stored in a more machine readable format , to which such a wind 
instrument is played.

If we can find that we have prior art. It seems entirely possible that such 
software exists, but I don't know of
any such software off the top of my head.

Further, this does show that this particular patent would not apply to 
pydance or StepMania.