On Jan. 6, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled that Sonos had sued Google for patent infringement, acknowledging Sonos's claim that Google had infringed its patent. This leads to the possibility of banning the import and sale of patent infringing products to the United States.
Sonos originally had a business partnership with Google, but filed a lawsuit against Google in 2020, alleging that Google infringed on its products by using the technology provided at the time to use multiple speakers simultaneously. Nest series, Chromecast, Pixel, etc., which have asked to stop selling smart speakers.
According to the ruling, the United States will not be able to import and sell Nest series, Chromecast, Pixel and so on made in China and accused of patent infringement.
However, ITC acknowledged that Google had changed the design to a form that did not infringe Sonos patents, and a Google spokesman told Protocol: "We do not expect imports and sales to be affected." In fact, Google announced the deletion of the batch volume adjustment function of the speaker group in terms of smart speakers and the volume adjustment function of the speaker group using the smartphone volume button.
Eddie Lazarus, Sonos's chief legal officer, welcomed the verdict in a statement: "a very rare overall victory in patent litigation." On this basis, "in the form of circumventing the import ban imposed by ITC, Google may reduce or exclude the functionality of the product." But even if Google sacrifices the consumer experience to avoid the import ban, Google's products infringe dozens of Sonos patents, Google's misconduct will continue, and damages payable to Sonos will continue. " "or, as other companies have done, Google can pay reasonable loyalty to unauthorized technology."
Some authorized patent infringements include stereoscopic operation of speakers, and even deleting this feature could greatly damage the attractiveness of Google's smart speakers. As Sonos points out, whether to pay legitimate loyalty or appeal to the Supreme Court against the decision is what Google will do in the future.
Source: ITC (Pdf), Protocol