Alesis Was Just Ordered To Pay Roland $4,600,000: Here's Why

InMusicBrands, the parent company of Alesis was ordered to pay Roland millions of dollars. The story behind it is long and complicated. In this video, we'll cover the history of Roland lawsuits against drum companies, and who invented mesh heads/positional sensing.
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So after making this video, I started getting messages from people in the industry. Don't take it all as gospel, but here's some stuff they said:

"The Roland action against InMusic was probably for the cymbal rotation stopper and possible “step mute sensor” patent. Hi-hat patent could also enter into these earlier actions too."

"The ddrum pads didn't use FSR (I’ve got them here and they definitely have a central piezo - I don’t know where that description comes from but there’s no FSR). They worked off a single central piezo underneath a reflection plate. The angle of the transient attack was used to determine how far from the central piezo the hit was. ddrum also used PS on their cymbal pads on the Ddrum 4/SE. OK, so they didn’t look like cymbals, but they definitely worked."

"Roland ONLY took out these mesh patents in the US and Japan. They did not take out mesh patents in any other territory. Anyone else could make a mesh kit and sell it anywhere, apart from the US or Japanese markets but no one did because everyone believed it was a global patent - lawyers were less used in the industry back then and everyone was less patent savvy."

"I understand Yamaha were intending on releasing the DTXtreme 1 with mesh, but with Mylar heads in the US and Japan, but it became too much of a head ache, and Roland threatened to tie them up for 7 years anyway sorting it out even though technically Yamaha were in the right. Both being Japanese companies, they settled with a gentlemanly agreement. However, the DTXtreme 1 manual explained how to use mesh on the kit and provided a special piece of foam to be used with mesh heads."

"A clever guy in Germany apparently patented mesh heads (in Germany only) around the release of the TD10 so that Roland had to pay him a fee for every Roland kit sold in Germany as they hadn’t patented it in Germany."

LINKS:

Timeline of events:
https://5mag.net/news/roland-patent-suit-alesis-inmusicbrands/

Roland Sues Inmusic:
https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2022-11-29/judgment-rendered-finding-inmusic-brands-inc-s-infringement-of-roland-s-electronic-drum-and-electronic-cymbal-patents

Inmusic sues Roland:
https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2017/01/18/inmusic-files-lawsuit-against-roland-over-electronic-drum-patents/

Reason for Inmusic Lawsuit:
https://digitaldrummermag.com/2022/12/01/roland-wins-patent-action-against-alesis/

Boring Court Documents:
https://casetext.com/search?q=Roland%20Corp.%20vs%20Inmusic%20Brands,%20Inc%20&sort=relevance&p=1&type=case&tab=keyword&jxs=

1903 Mesh Head Patent:
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/8c/08/1e/c2aa9f8b1d7840/US729936.pdf

Pintechs Thoughts On The Mesh Head Patent In 2010:
https://issuu.com/digitaldrummer/docs/digitaldrummer_july_2010_promo

Roland Sues Hart Dynamics:
https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/cacdce-143386-roland-v-hart-dynamics
https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/cacdce-25757-roland-v-hart-dynamics

Roland Sues Wirges:
https://casetext.com/case/roland-corporation-v-wirges-percussion-systems-llc

The history of Roland:
https://articles.roland.com/redefining-rhythm-a-history-of-roland-drums/?fbclid=IwAR3k_5GvJoFD2ziLUhRMQuNIXPEqlhgnAIblQGFREgX5y0bFSAF0_55H3A4
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