Google and Sonos have been engaged in a patent dispute for years now, with Sonos claiming that Google infringes on its intellectual property around audio casting and smart speaker management. In the course of time, Google was forced to remove a few features from Android phones and ultimately had topay a multi-million dollar penalty. A California judge has now thrown that previous verdict out of the window, saying that the patents in question were not enforceable.
Ascovered by Reuters, the ruling from US District Judge William Alsup came as early as last Friday, October 6. The patents in question were first filed in 2006 and covered multi-room audio, with Sonos stating that it invented the idea. Google claims that Sonos just tried to retroactively connect a newer 2019 patent application with the older one to make it appear older, and it looks like Judge Alsup agrees with the company, saying that Google’s early 2015 products anticipated the 2019 patents, thus making them invalid.
Reuters cites Alsup saying, “This was not a case of an inventor leading the industry to something new. This was a case of the industry leading with something new and, only then, an inventor coming out of the woodwork to say that he had come up with the idea first.” Sonos vehemently disagrees with the ruling and stated that it will appeal the decision.
Sonos first filed its lawsuit against Google in 2020 after working together with Google for a long time to make it possible to cast content from Android devices to Sonos speakers. The ongoing fight has had some real world implications for users, with Google speakers just last month losing the ability to join multiple speaker groups at once. You also can’t control the volume for grouped speakers anymore, and setting up new speakers can get complicated or impossible for some people with Pixel phones in the US. All this is just the tip of the iceberg, and we’ve argued before thatGoogle should just pay Sonos to make its products work properly againor refund owners.
With the judge overturning previous rulings, it’s possible that some long-lost features may be on the way back soon. However, given that Sonos has announced that it will appeal the decision, it might take some time until those of us with Google Home and Nest speakers will see a satisfactory resolution. In the meantime, there are plenty of othergreat smart speakersaround.
