Google is suing Sonos for allegedly infringing on patents covering smart speaker and voice-control technology.
The firms have been locked in a two-year legal dispute over wireless speaker patents, which started when a partnership between the two firms sourced and Sonos accused Google of stealing its IP to build Google-branded devices with Sonos tech.
This week’s suits, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, claim theft of seven more features—including hotword detection, wireless charging, and how a group of speakers determines which should respond to voice input, The Verge reports.
According to a Google spokesperson, the latest litigation aims to “defend our technology and challenge Sonos’ clear, continued infringement of our patents.” Sonos “started an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers,” José Castañeda told The Verge. The tech giant plans to file similar lawsuits with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) in hopes of banning imports of certain Sonos items.
The litigious spat began in 2020, when Sonos sued Google over multi-room speaker technology. Google quickly countered, claiming the consumer electronics maker also plagiarized some of its own patents. Sonos reciprocated with even more legal proceedings.
In January 2022, the ITC ruled in favor of Sonos, placing an import ban on Google Home/Nest speakers, Chromecast devices, and Pixel handsets. Google altered its products, changing their setup and Speaker Group functionality.
Even with modifications, Google’s merchandise “will still infringe many dozens of Sonos patents, its wrongdoing will persist, and the damages owed Sonos will continue to accrue,” Sonos said early this year. “Alternatively, Google can—as other companies have already done—pay a fair royalty for the technologies it has misappropriated.”
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