Google is hitting at Sonos with lawsuits alleging that the company known for producing wireless speakers is infringing on Google’s smart speaker and voice control technology patents. It’s just the latest move in a long saga between the two companies, involving several lawsuits from Sonos, one from Google, and one ruling that was in favor of Sonos leading to its features being removed from Google’s products.
Google’s latest lawsuits allege infringement of seven more patents over hotword detection, wireless charging, and how a group of speakers determines which one should respond to voice input.
Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda told The Verge that the lawsuits are being filed “to defend our technology and challenge Sonos’s clear, continued infringement of our patents.” He added that Sonos had “started an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers.”
The lawsuits were filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Google is also planning on filing similar lawsuits with the US International Trade Commission in an attempt to have imports on infringing Sonos products banned.
Sonos stated that the lawsuits were an “intimidation tactic” and that they made to “retaliate against Sonos for speaking out against Google’s monopolistic practices.” Sonos also stated that Google’s attempts were to “grin down a smaller competitor.”
The entire situation began back in 2020 after Sonos sued Google over multiroom speaker technology. Prior to the lawsuit’s filing, the two companies had partnered to make Google’s services work on Sonos speakers. Sonos claimed Google stole its technology to build the Google Home and other devices. Google then countersued, claiming Sonos had infringed on several patents. Sonos sued after that.
In January, the US International Trade Commission ruled in favor of Sonos, stating that Google was in violation of Sonos’s patents. As a result of this ruling, Google has had to adjust features on its products, including the ability to adjust the volume of a group of speakers at once.
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Zainah Yousef
Zainah Yousef is the author of The Fallen Age Saga and specializes in gaming, social media advice, and reviews. She's been writing all her life and she probably won't stop anytime soon.
