Technology
Google sues Sonos over new voice-assistant technology: Report
Google and Sonos’ patent dispute has made new progress. This time, Google countered Sonos through two lawsuits. Google has accused the wireless home speaker company of infringing several of its patents on smart speakers and voice-control technology.
So far, the patent battle between Google and Sonos has gone back and forth, involving multiple lawsuits by Sonos, one by Google, and a ruling in Sonos’ favor that forced some features of Google’s products to be forced Cancel. The new lawsuit this time accuses Sonos of infringing seven other patents, one focusing on hot word detection and wireless charging, and another around how a set of speakers determines which one to respond to people’s questions.
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Google spokesman José Castañeda said the lawsuit was filed to “defend our technology and challenge Sonos’ clear and ongoing violation of our patents.” Castaneda said Sonos “launched an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products at the expense of our mutual customers.”
Both lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Castaneda said Google plans to file a similar lawsuit with the U.S. International Trade Commission in the coming days, seeking a ban on the importation of any infringing Sonos products.
Sonos described the new lawsuit as a “scare tactic” and said Google’s purpose was “to retaliate against Sonos for speaking out against Google’s monopolistic practices,” allowing Google to avoid paying royalties and “smashing a smaller competitor,” the company said. “It’s not going to work,” Man said in a statement.
The legal battle began in 2020 when Sonos sued Google over multi-room audio technology. The two companies worked together years ago to get Google services running on Sonos products, and Sonos claims that Google continues to steal its speaker technology to build Google Home and other devices.
A few months later, Google countersued, claiming that Sonos also infringed several of its patents. Then Sonos sued again. Ultimately, in January, two years after the first lawsuit was filed, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in Sonos’ favor, finding that Google had infringed Sonos’ patents.
In response, Google had to adjust the functionality of some of its products. This includes Google removing the ability to adjust the volume of a set of speakers — a very annoying change for users with multiple Google speakers. Today’s lawsuit appears to be Google’s attempt to use a new patent dispute to make a comeback.