Wi-fi speaker pioneer Sonos has a tenuous historical past with Google. The 2 firms have been embroiled in lawsuits and countersuits over varied patents, lastly settling the primary of those earlier this yr in Sonos’ favor. Google is now reopening the battle with allegations that Sonos has violated a number of extra of Google’s personal patents.
Like Sonos, Google argues the infringements arose from the partnership these firms shaped in 2013. The businesses initially partnered to deliver Google’s streaming music service to Sonos’ units. Sonos’ unique 2020 lawsuit accused the expertise big of leveraging this partnership to steal {hardware} expertise from its blueprints in 2013. The US Worldwide Commerce Fee sided with Sonos in January, which required Google to “dumb down” its sensible audio system to the ire of shoppers.
Google’s two lawsuits cite seven totally different patent infringements, all of which revolve across the firm’s Google Assistant expertise. These patents cowl ideas together with “Hotword Detection On A number of Units,” “Technique and System for Wi-fi Charging,” “System Management Negotiation Amongst Voice Interface Units,” and “Equipment and Technique for Seamless Commissioning of Wi-fi Units.”
The brand new complaints state that “Sonos is utilizing, with out permission, these Google applied sciences in its merchandise to allow a number of commercially-desirable options.” The filings to on to assert that “Sonos acknowledges that… ‘the actual magic is within the software program,’ and never within the ‘look and sound’ of its audio system” by citing Sonos’ tech weblog. Given this “software program ‘magic’ makes use of patented Google expertise,” Google is in search of restitution.
This isn’t the primary time Google has fired again, both. Google has beforehand countersued in June of 2020. That criticism coated extra elements of the sensible speaker expertise together with mesh networking, echo cancellation, and customized community search. Sonos returned fireplace with its personal patent lawsuit detailing 5 extra wi-fi audio infringements that September, proper earlier than Google launched its new Chromecast and Nest sensible speaker.
This drawn-out authorized battle is certain to go away one large loser – the client. These instances are often settled with a lack of performance for one producer’s product or the opposite, as we noticed within the unique case.
