Google has just been hit with a $32.5 million penalty for infringing on a patent held by Sonos. According to Law360, a California federal jury ordered the fine after determining that Google infringed on a patent Sonos holds relating to grouping speakers so they can play audio at the same time, something the company has been doing for years.Â
US District Judge William Alsup had already determined that early version of products like the Chromecast Audio and Google Home infringed on Sonos’ patent; the question was whether more recent, revamped products were also infringing on the patent.
The jury found in favor of Sonos, but decided a second patent — one that relates to controlling devices via a smartphone or other device — wasn’t violated. They said that Sonos hadn’t convincingly shown that the Google Home app infringed on that particular patent.
Still, it feels like a big win for Sonos, who originally filed suit against Google all the way back in January of 2020. Specifically, Sonos claimed that Google gained knowledge of the patent through prior collaboration between the two companies, back they collaborated to allow for integration between Sonos’s speakers and Google Play Music.
Since then, Google counter-sued Sonos, claiming that Sonos had in fact infringed its own patents around smart speakers. As with any good legal battle, Sonos then expanded its own lawsuit a few months later. More recently, Google sued Sonos in 2022, saying that its new voice assistant infringed on seven patents relating to the Google Assistant.
Whether today’s decision will slow the legal battle between the two companies remains to be seen, though we’d expect the bickering to continue full-throttle in the months to come. There are plenty of suits out there between the companies that aren’t yet resolved, and we’d expect Google to appeal this decision as well. We’ve reached out to both Sonos and Google and will update this story with anything we hear.
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