Battle of the smart speakers: judge rules that Google infringed five Sonos patents

Google is guilty of patent infringement against Sonos, says an initial ruling by a US International Trade Commission judge.

Sonos has been in litigation with Google since January 2020, claiming that under the guise of studying Sonos' blueprints for interoperability of its own music service with those products, Google stole five of its patents related to smart speakers, including a patent allowing wireless speakers to sync and communicate with each other.

As part of its original lawsuit, Sonos also sought a ban on the sale of Google equipment in the U.S., including Nest hubs, Chromecasts and Pixel smartphones. But Google fought back, filing a countersuit last June alleging that the Santa Barbara-based wireless speaker maker was using Google's patented technology for software, networking, search, audio processing, digital media management and streaming without paying a licensing fee.

This, however, has only spurred Sonos to launch a new case, claiming that Google infringed five more patents in addition to the original five.

An International Trade Commission judge found that Google infringed all five patents mentioned in the original suit, but as the New York Times notes, that's not the final decision - the Commission will also review the case and issue its final decision on December 13.

Source: nytimes

Cover: sonos