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12 June 2020PatentsSarah Morgan

Google escalates Sonos dispute with countersuit

Five months after home speaker maker  Sonos accused  Google of copying its technology and “flooding the market” with cheap, infringing products, Google has hit back with a countersuit.

Yesterday, June 11, Google  filed its suit at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing Sonos of infringing five patents covering echo cancellation and personalised searching, among other technologies.

“Sonos has made false claims about the companies’ shared work and Google’s technology in the lawsuits that Sonos filed against Google earlier this year. While Google rarely sues other companies for patent infringement, it must assert its intellectual property rights here,” said the suit.

In January, Sonos  accused Google of rolling out a line of infringing products including Chromecast Audio, Nest Hub, and Google Home at “subsidised” prices to “lock in” revenues from e-commerce and advertising.

Sonos’ 96-page complaint added: “The harm produced by Google’s infringement has been profoundly compounded by Google’s business strategy to use its multi-room audio products to vacuum up invaluable consumer data from users and, thus, further entrench the Google platform among its users and ultimately fuel its dominant advertising and search platforms.”

The suit claimed that Google had gained knowledge of Sonos’ multi-room technology when the two partnered to integrate Google Play Music into Sonos’ products.

Two months later Google  hit back, claiming that Sonos’ complaint uses “revisionist history to attack Google’s innovative software and hardware products”.

Now, Google has countersued, claiming that Sonos is using “substantial volumes” of Google’s technology in both its hardware and software, including patented Google innovations in search, software, networking, audio processing, and digital media management and streaming.

Google claimed Sonos had repeatedly asked Google for assistance, so that Sonos could employ Google technology to improve its products.

A spokesperson for Google said the company was disappointed that Sonos has made false claims about its work together and technology.

“We are reluctantly defending ourselves by asserting our patent rights. While we look to resolve our dispute, we will continue to ensure our shared customers have the best experience using our products,” they added.

According to the claim, Sonos asked for Google’s assistance in 2013 and 2016, to integrate with Google’s Play Music service and Assistant software, respectively. Google said that, both times, it provided significant assistance and engineering resources.

“Google is proud of its more than five-year partnership with Sonos, and has worked constructively with Sonos to make the companies’ products work seamlessly by building special integrations for Sonos,” said the suit.

In response to the suit, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence said: “Instead of simply addressing the merits of our case, and paying us what we're owed, Google has chosen to use their size and breadth to try and find areas in which they can retaliate. We look forward to winning our original case, and this newly filed case as well.”

He added: “We're mostly sad to see a once innovative company with the mission of ‘Do No Evil’ avoid addressing the fact they've infringed on our inventions, and have turned to strong arm tactics the robber barons of old would have applauded.”

Google has asked the court for a finding of infringement, triple damages, and injunction and costs.

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