The soap opera of Google and Sonos continues despite the preliminary decision issued by the leading judge of the US International Trade Commission, who agreed with the firm specialized in audio devices, assuring that Google infringed the use of up to 5 patents on its products and technologies. Now, the Mountain View company has filed several lawsuits against Sonos for the alleged violation of 7 of its patents. These include keyword detection systems, wireless charging, and technology that determines which group of speakers should respond to a user’s voice input, according to reports. TheVerge.
At the moment, there are two lawsuits that Google has filed with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The company, however, plans to report other violations of this style by Sonos in the United States International Trade Commission (USITC, for its acronym in English). In the latter case, and if the courts agree with Google, it hopes that the USITC Prohibit the import of any Sonos device that infringes the various patents.
However, José Castañeda, a Google spokesman, has assured the aforementioned medium that the main objective of these lawsuits is “to defend our technology and challenge Sonos’ clear and continuous infringement of our patents.” He further alleges that the audio firm has “launched an aggressive and misleading campaign” against its products.
Google and Sonos: from collaborating together to suing each other
The legal battle between Google and Sonos is not something new. In fact, it was the American firm specializing in audio that filed a lawsuit against Google in 2020. It did so, verifying that the company led by Sundar Pichai had violated several patents. These, in particular, were decided with the aim of making Google services compatible with Sonos smart speakers. Later, Google would have used these patents for the development of Google Home and other gadgets belonging to its range of smart devices.
Google, who has always denied having used patent information to develop its products, definitively lost the lawsuit in January 2022. The ruling in favor of Sonos also forced the company to eliminate some of the functions based on the different patents. Among them, the possibility of controlling the volume at the same time on several Google smart speakers. Also an option that allows you to adjust the audio level with the physical keys of the smartphone.