A US judge ruled in August last year that Google had infringed on Sonos patents. (image credits: google)
Google has always maintained that its technology was developed independently and was not copied from Sonos.
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The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has said in a significant decision that Google has infringed five patents of the high-tech speaker and audio technology company. Sonos, related to smart speakers. In August last year, a US judge ruled that Google Sonos patent infringed. “We appreciate that ITC has conclusively validated five Sonos patents in this case and explicitly ruled that Google infringes all five,” Sonos Chief Legal Officer Eddie Lazarus said on Thursday. “This is a board victory that is extremely rare in patent cases and underscores the strength of Sonos’ extensive patent portfolio and the hollowness of Google’s denial of copycats,” it said in a statement.
In January 2020, Sonos sued tech giant Google for allegedly copying its wireless speaker design, urging ITC to ban Google products such as laptops, phones and speakers. Sonos CEO Patrick Spence testified before the US House Antitrust Committee that Google “barred the company from having both Amazon’s Alexa Assistant and Google Assistant active at the same time”. In a statement to The Verge, Google said that “we do not expect any impact on our ability to import or sell our products”.
According to Lazarus, Sonos patented Sonos’s groundbreaking invention of extremely popular home audio features, including the set-up for controlling a home audio system, synchronization of multiple speakers, independent volume control of different speakers, and stereo pairing of speakers. According to Sonos, shortly after the first Google Home was launched in 2016, it began warning Google about patent infringement, but to no avail.
Sonos said it has accused Google of infringing a total of 100 patents. Google also overturned audio company Sonos for patent infringement, alleging that the tech giant had contributed “substantial Google engineering resources” to help Sonos in the past.
Google has always maintained that its technology was developed independently and was not copied from Sonos.
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