Pankhuri Malik is an IPilogue Writer, IP Innovation Clinic Fellow, and an LLM Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

In the latest development in the global patent wars between Google and Sonos, Google has Sonos, having filed two suits in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on August 8, 2022. Through these , Google has Sonos of infringing seven (7) of its patents related to , including detection of “hotwords” and wireless charging.

Google and Sonos’ spotty history

Google and Sonos have been trying to one-up each other since the beginning of the pandemic. As reported , in January 2022, two years after Sonos filed the first patent infringement lawsuit against Google, the United States International Trade Commission issued a ruling in favour of Sonos holding Google’s products infringing on five of Sonos’ smart speaker related patents, and banning the import of goods with the infringing features into the US.

To circumvent the import ban, Google chose to roll back many features offered to its customers at the time of sale of the products. Expectedly, the decision to remove functionality instead of licensing the patents from Sonos has caused some with Google’s customers.

Allegedly, the companies had previously worked together to incorporate Google voice assistant on Sonos devices. But this relationship soured soon after, with Sonos Google of monopolistic practices and of using patent laws to squash competition from small companies. Google, on the other hand, that they collaborated to develop new technology and accuses Sonos of leading a misleading campaign against Google.

Most interestingly, Sonos has accused Google of something called .  Sonos claims that Google’s infringement of over 100 of Sonos’ patents is deliberate and a business model. Efficient infringement refers to Google’s bet that the cost of contesting and paying off patent infringement lawsuits will be significantly less than the profits earned from sale of the technology. Sonos also says that Google has been undercutting its prices to crowd competitors out of the market.

The present suit

On August 8, Google filed two lawsuits against Sonos it of infringing seven of Google’s patents through a range of products, such as Sonos Move, Sonos Roam, Sonos Arc and Sonos One. The company also plans to file these actions before the United States International Trade Commission to ban imports of allegedly infringing Sonos products into the US.

Sonos has responded by accusing Google of using the lawsuits as an intimidation tactic against Sonos calling out Google’s practices.

What may occur moving forward

Neither company has a history of using patent laws offensively. While Google continues to collect user data and uses online as its main money-maker, its approach on initiating litigation, like Sonos, has been lackadaisical.

But with both companies facing off in multiple jurisdictions, it remains to be seen if there is any merit to Sonos’ claim of efficient infringement.

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Photo by Bence Boros ()

Tianchu Gao is an IPilogue Writer and a 1L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

If you are a fan of Google products, you will likely find that some of its home appliances are becoming slightly more cumbersome to use. You may need to individually adjust each speaker in a multi-room audio system instead of using the group volume controller. Some users may have to use a specific app to set up their smart devices and update them. These changes are the result of a recent by the U.S. International Trade Commission which held that Google infringed on five of Sonos’ patents relating to smart speakers.

Sonos is a developer and manufacturer of audio products based in the U.S., best known for its multi-room audio products. According to Sonos, the company began sharing its technology with Google in 2013, when the two started working together. Google was not a competitor at the time, but it soon moved into Sonos’ space, launching its first music streaming device, Chromecast, in 2015 and the Google Home speaker in 2016. 

The lawsuit began in January 2020, with Sonos alleging that Google violated its patents related to audio technologies and used them in products that undercut Sonos. Since then, the parties have been enmeshed in a global with cases across the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

The by the U.S. International Trade Commission came out in August 2021. It determined that Google violated the , which aims to deter unfair competition through prohibiting actions like importing products that infringe on U.S. patents. As a result, the Commission issued an import ban against Google products that infringed Sonos’ patents, mostly manufactured in China. The decision was upheld in the in January.

A New 91��ɫ Times anticipated that the impact of the ruling on Google’s business is likely to be limited. The newer products developed by Google are using different technologies, and Google’s main cash cow, online advertising, remains intact.  

Yet the conflict between Google and Sonos is important because it reflects the antitrust problems created by the expanding businesses of today’s tech giants. Starting out as a search engine in 1998, Google is now producing a wide range of hardware products including laptops, smartphones, and home devices. Apple and Facebook (now renamed Meta) are also facing similar issues against smaller companies. According to , its lawsuit against Google is meant to “ensure all companies, regardless of size, receive fair compensation for investing in the development of industry leading technology.”

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