Sonos Sues Google For Infringing Five More Wireless Audio Patents

Sonos has filed another patent lawsuit against Google, alleging that the search giant is infringing five wireless audio patents across the entire line of Nest and Chromecast products. From a report: Sonos filed its first patent lawsuits against Google in January in California federal court and with the International Trade Commission; the federal case has been put on hold while the ITC reaches a decision on whether to block Google's allegedly infringing products from market. The new case is filed only in the federal court for the Western District of Texas -- an emerging patent lawsuit hotspot -- and represents a more aggressive approach from Sonos. "We think it's important to show the depth and breadth of Google's copying," says Eddie Lazarus, Sonos' chief legal officer. "We showed them claim charts on 100 patents that we claimed they were infringing, all to no avail." Google, of course, says it will fight back; it has countersued Sonos in the initial case. "Sonos has made misleading statements about our history of working together," says Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda. "Our technology and devices were designed independently. We deny their claims vigorously, and will be defending against them."

Patents

[slazzy]

Can we do away with patents already?

Re:Patents

[l0ungeb0y]

Or better yet, reform the Patent System so that it returns to working as originally intended, protecting the small businesses and individuals from big business. Sonos is a developer of audio products, in the case Google is ripping them off and hurting them by infringing patens with impunity, which they can do since they can well afford a legal battle that will only harm Sonos while litigating, and keep using the ripped off tech while it's tied up in court and at the end of the day, they will force Sonos to settle and extend a licensing agreement So even if Sonos wins, Sonos looses and Google gets away with theft

Re:

[idontusenumbers]

In this instance the patents are pretty low quality. From what I can gather, it's old ideas where the patent is just that same idea 'but in the cloud'.

Re:

[bws111]

Patents don't protect ideas, they protect implementations of ideas. If 'in the cloud' is a different implementation, then it is patentable.

Re:

[stabiesoft]

From the article ...
The patents in the new case are more recent — one of them was issued just two weeks ago, although it covers work started in 2011 — and relate to more modern wireless speaker system features, like controlling streaming music from a secondary device like a phone, automatic speaker EQ, and speaker group management and “zone scene” presets. Many of them seem like patents on the basics of smart speaker control — setting the volume on a speaker from your phone, f

Re:

[idontusenumbers]

My squeezeboxes can do this. They were made in 2008/2009; I have no idea when the software support was added.

These patents are definitely covering things that are straightforward to implement. I don't think they are anywhere near the definition of novel, regardless of how much physical hardware is involved in the implementation.

Re:

[scdeimos]

A lot of these problems are because it's a first-to-file patent system. It won't matter how much prior art there may be.

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[idontusenumbers]

Well, published prior art would mean the patent is invalid. The patent examiner might miss it and then grant the patent, but the patent shouldn't hold up when challenged. Challenging it would be expensive though. Regardless of the prior art, the novel threshold should also prevent the patent from being granted, and even if granted, allow the patent to be challenged and invalidated, again an expensive endeavor.

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[Sloppy]

Well, prior to 2011 would you have ever thought of using a remote control to change volume, or which broadcast to render? We stand upon the shoulders of giants!

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[afmstuff]

An important caveat is that the implementation is patentable if and only if it is novel and non-obvious to those skilled in the art.

Re:Patents

[bws111]

'Novel', as defined by patent law, means it has not previously been patented, described in publication, or available to the public.

'Obvious', as defined by patent law, means would it have been obvious BEFORE the patent was filed to someone having 'ordinary' skill in the art that this was THE solution to the problem at hand. In other words, before the patent was filed, if you asked people ordinarily skilled in the art, would they all have come up with the same answer? If so, then you could say it is obvious. If not, if there are multiple solutions, then it is not obvious. Looking at a patent and saying 'I could have come up with that' does NOT mean it is obvious.

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[pneill]

That was not what it was intended to do. I quote from the US Constitution:

Article I Section 8 | Clause 8 – [Congress has the power]. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

That's the purpose of the patent system - to incentivize the disclose of inventions in exchange for being granted a limited monopoly on that invention so that others can build upon those ideas to crea

Predictable reaction from Google

[Bu11etmagnet]

Sonos a bitch!

Gotta make money somehow

[DarkRookie2]

I mean all they make is shit speaker, so patent troll for the the bottom line.