A jury in San Francisco has found Google infringed on a Sonos speaker patent, ending one of the years-long legal battles between the two home audio makers. According to the ruling, Google will have to compensate Sonos for the loss of more than 14 million devices, priced per unit. The decision is the latest step in a far-reaching legal dispute between the pair of former audio technology partners.
The verdict, delivered Friday in a San Francisco courtroom, was based on the jury’s decision that Google infringed U.S. Patent No. 1,0848,885, also known as No. 885 in the judgment filed, which covers Sonos Inc.’s zoned scene management solution.
According to the filing, Sonos was awarded a total of $32,507,183.40 in compensation. The judgment total was derived from a patent fee assessment of $2.30 per unit in the judgment, which was then assessed against a total of 14,133,558 identified units.
Sonos originally took legal action against Google in 2020, filing lawsuits in two courts alleging that Google willfully infringed five separate patents related to wireless speaker synchronization. The International Trade Commission upheld the lawsuit in 2022, agreeing with the fact that Google violated the patent in question.
Not to be outdone, Google countersued Sonos later that year, arguing that Sonos infringed on Google’s hotword detection, wireless charging, and methods that define how a set of speakers determines which one should respond to voice input. This 2022 countersuit is completely different from Google’s previous 2020 countersuit, which said Sonos infringed patents related to mesh networking, echo cancellation, digital rights management, content notifications, and personalized search features.
The back-and-forth legal battle between Google and Sonos hasn’t been entirely well-received. Both companies have been accused of employing less-than-ideal tactics throughout the legal process. Last month, federal judge William Alsup disapproved of the companies’ actions, calling them “symbols of patent litigation at its worst.”
The judge’s criticism came in an opinion filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, citing nearly 5,000 documents filed by attorneys in support of the elimination of less than five paragraphs of information from two pretrial expert reports. According to Alsup, “…it appears that attorneys are proposing strikedown not out of prejudice, but to secure the advantages of summary judgment and trial, which is emblematic of the worst in patent litigation.”
With neither side willing to back down, we likely haven’t seen the last of Sonos and Google’s legal dance. While no further actions have been identified, Google’s Peter Schottenfels said: “…we have always developed technology independently and competed based on our ideas. We are considering our next steps”.
