US regulators rule that Google infringed on Sonos . speaker patents

The United States International Trade Commission has agreed with Sonos’ claim that Google infringed on its speaker patents and patents. It issued its original decision back in August, and this completes its final ruling, which barred Google from importing products found to infringe Sonos’ intellectual property. Since Google manufactures its products in China, that means it won’t be able to ship them to the US once the import ban goes into effect after 60 days.

In 2020, Sonos sued Google for five patents, including one detailing technology that allows wireless speakers to sync with each other. As New York Times Note, affected products include Google’s Home smart speaker, Pixel phones, and computers and Chromecast devices. While Google is facing an import ban, a spokesperson said that the tech giant does not expect the ruling to disrupt its ability to import and sell devices.

“While we disagree with today’s decision, we appreciate that the International Trade Commission approved our revised designs,” the spokesperson said. Protocol. “We will review it further and continue to defend ourselves against Sonos’ frivolous claims about our partnerships and intellectual property.” The committee did not challenge those alternative designs in its final decision, which means Google could implement them.

In fact, the Nest team recently announced some changes to speaker groups, it said, “due to a recent legal ruling.” The most notable change is that in the future, users will no longer be able to adjust the volume of all speakers in a group at once. Instead, they will have to tune each speaker individually.

In a statement, Sonos’ Chief Legal Officer, Eddie Lazarus, acknowledged that there was a possibility that “Google will be able to degrade or remove product features in a way that circumvents import ban laws imposed by the ITC.” .” However, he said the tech giant’s products would still “infringe dozens of Sonos patents” – that is, unless Google pays Sonos royalties for their technologies.

His full statement reads:

“We appreciate that the ITC has unambiguously verified the five Sonos patents mentioned in this case and ruled unequivocally that Google infringed all five. That’s a huge, huge win. rare in patent cases and underscores the power of Sonos’s rich patent portfolio and the emptiness of Google’s denial of copying.These Sonos patents include groundbreaking invention by Sonos. Sonos for wildly popular home audio features, including setup to control home audio systems, multi-speaker synchronization, independent volume control of different speakers, and audio pairing floating of the speakers.

It is possible that Google will degrade or remove product features in a way that circumvents the import bans imposed by the ITC. But while Google may be sacrificing the consumer experience to try to circumvent this import ban, its products will still infringe dozens of Sonos patents, its misconduct will still be. continues and the damage Sonos incurs will continue to increase. In addition, Google may — as other companies have done — pay reasonable royalties for technologies that Google has appropriated. “