It looks like Roland has won a lawsuit against InMotion, who owns brands such as Alesis. All the way back in 2016, Roland had claimed that InMotion (Alesis) had infringed on four of their patents in their new electronic drums and there has been an ongoing legal battle until now.
On November 17, 2022, the jury rendered a verdict finding that all five of Roland’s patents which inMusic claimed to be invalid were found to be valid, and all four of Roland’s patents which Roland asserted were infringed were found be infringed by inMusic. On November 18, 2022, the jury rendered a damages verdict finding damages in the amount of US$ 4.6 million (about 650 million yen) to Roland as compensation for inMusic’s infringement. On November 21, 2022, the court rendered a final judgment upholding the jury’s verdicts.
5mag.net has some interesting info about the specific patents and includes some images of the claimed infringement, which is pretty interesting to see.
Roland has been going after copyright infringers who more or less have been copying their designs and this is the latest example of them winning their battles. Will this affect Alesis drum kits moving into the future? We’ll have to see.
