Sonos shares fell immediately after Google announced they were turning the screws on the wireless audio company, after new legal action was filed against the US audio company for infringing several Google patents during the night
Initially, Sonos was taking legal action against Google with Sonos winning the first round, now it looks like Google will go after Sonos, who have been accused of an aggressive and misleading campaign related to Google and the use of network audio technology.
Google claims the wireless speaker company is infringing on a number of patents on smart speakers and voice control technology.
A spokesman for the research and technology giant, José Castañeda, said the lawsuits are being filed to “defend our technology and challenge Sonos’ clear and continued infringement of our patents.” Castañeda said Sonos had “launched an aggressive and deceptive campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers.”
Sonos, which in the past has had no problem trying to push Sonos speakers to existing customers in an effort to drive new sales, characterized the new lawsuits as a “scare tactic” and said they were intended to ” retaliating against Sonos for speaking out against Google’s monopoly.” practices,” allow Google to avoid royalty payments and “eliminate a smaller competitor,” Sonos chief legal officer Eddie Lazarus told The Verge. “It’s not going to succeed.”
It’s the latest volley in a back-and-forth battle over wireless speakers that has so far involved multiple lawsuits from Sonos, a lawsuit from Google and a ruling in favor of Sonos that has led to the removal of features from Google products .
These new lawsuits allege infringement of seven additional patents.
The first claim focuses on keyword detection and wireless charging, and the other revolves around how a group of speakers determines which one should respond to voice input.
Both lawsuits were filed this morning in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Google plans to file similar lawsuits with the U.S. International Trade Commission in the coming days that would seek to ban imports of any infringing Sonos products, Castañeda told The Verge.
This could affect shipments to Australia if successful.
The legal skirmish began in 2020 when Sonos initially sued Google over multi-room speaker technology.
The two companies had partnered years earlier to make Google services work on Sonos speakers, and Sonos claimed Google stole its speaker technology to build the Google Home and other devices. Google countered months later, claiming that Sonos also infringed on some of its patents. Sonos then sued again. Finally, in January, two years after the first lawsuit was filed, the US International Trade Commission ruled in favor of Sonos, finding that Google infringed on Sonos’ patents.
In response, Google has had to adjust the features of some of its products. This included Google removing the ability to adjust the volume of a group of speakers at once, a rather annoying change for owners of multiple Google speakers. Today’s lawsuits appear to be an attempt by Google to use Sonos as two shoulders over features.
Sonos shares have fallen 33% over the past year, with the company due to report its latest results next week.
About the author of the post
David Richards has been writing about technology for over 30 years. A former Fleet Street journalist, he wrote the award-winning series on the Federated Ships Painters + Dockers Union for the Bulletin which led to a Royal Commission. He is also a Logie winner for his outstanding contribution to television journalism with a story called The Werribee Affair. In 1997, he built Australia’s largest technology media company and before that the third largest PR firm to become the founding firm of Ogilvy PR. Today he writes about technology and its impact on both businesses and consumers.