Google fails to stall Sonos litigation
Tech giant faced criticism from a California judge over ‘expert reports’ | Smart speaker manufacturer accuses Google of “flooding the market” with infringing products.
The Sonos v Google litigation over smart speaker technology is set to proceed, after Google received mixed treatment in the court this week.
Yesterday, April 13, District Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for the Northern District of California rejected Google’s attempt to invalidate all the patents at issue and its bid for summary judgment.
However the court did side with Google on the invalidity of one patent and a finding of no wilful or indirect infringement of another, while also rejecting Sonos’ bid for summary judgment.
The latest order comes just one day after another court order which, along with striking out certain paragraphs of Google’s expert reports, also criticised the parties.
“On these motions alone, counsel submitted 135 pages of briefing, 1,130 pages of unsealed exhibits, and 3,756 pages of conditionally sealed exhibits and accoutrements—all to strike, in the end, fewer than five paragraphs from two expert reports,” said Alsup.
He added: “Alas, much ink was spilled for little purpose. Most new theories proved to be permissible applications of disclosed theories or elaborations of evidence relevant to proof of disclosed theories. It appears counsel moved to strike not out of prejudice but to secure an advantage for summary judgment and trial, emblematic of the worst of patent litigation.”
The trial is set for May 8.
In January 2020, the smart speaker manufacturer accused Google of “ flooding the market” with loss-leading products that copied Sonos’ patented technology. In response, Google alleged that “Sonos’s complaint uses revisionist history to attack Google’s innovative software and hardware products”.
Sonos secured a limited import ban from the US International Commission (ITC) in early 2022, with the ITC barring Alphabet’s Google from importing certain smart home devices and audio systems produced in China into the US.
Google escalated the dispute by filing lawsuits in the US which accused Sonos' new voice-assistant technology of infringing seven Google patents. It also filed complaints against Sonos at the ITC.
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