Sonos is suing Google, accusing the company of infringing five of its wireless audio patents across the Nest and Chromecast product lines.
The allegation comes as Google announced its brand new Nest speaker at its Autumn event 2020 yesterday.
This isn’t the first time Sonos has taken Google to court; in January of this year, the audio company
sued Google for allegedly copying its speaker technology and undercutting it at market. However, the case has been put on hold while the International Trade Commission reaches a decision on whether to block Google’s ‘offending’ products from market.
In a more aggressive approach from Sonos, this new case has only been filed in the federal court for the Western District of Texas, which has recently regained its title as capital of patent litigation.
In a report, Sonos’ chief legal officer, Eddie Lazarus said: “We think it’s important to show the depth and breadth of Google’s copying. We showed them claim charts on 100 patents that we claimed they were infringing, all to no avail.”
Google is fighting the claims, and even countersued Sonos in the case filed in January, claiming that Sonos had made misleading statements about their history of working together. Google’s spokesperson, Jose Castaneda said: “Our technology and devices were designed independently. We deny their claims vigorously and will be defending against them.”
The patents that Google has allegedly infringed upon in the new case are very recent, with one of them being issued just two weeks ago, even thought it applies to work carried out from 2011.
The patents allegedly infringed upon in the most recent case relate to new wireless speaker system features, such as controlling streaming music from a secondary device, automatic speaker EQ, and speaker group management and ‘zone scene’ presets. One of the patents was only issued two weeks ago, even thought it covers work form 2011.