Google will have to pay $32.5 million to speaker manufacturer Sonos due to a patent violation, according to a San Francisco jury’s recent decision.
The ruling from the jury last Friday determined that one of Google’s own speaker systems had violated a Sonos pattern, ending a protracted legal struggle that began back in 2020 when Sonos sued Google for allegedly stealing the technology for its patented multiroom audio system.
Each of the 14,133,558 Sonos devices in question that were violated prompted a $2.30 fine from Google.
The lawsuit Sonos won against Google at the US International Trade Commission in early 2022 led to its win over Google.
At the time, this decision banned various Google products for purportedly copying Sonos models and compelled Google to remove some features from its line of smart speakers and displays.
The First in a Long Line of Google Setbacks ?
The humiliating loss to Google wasn’t as severe as it may have been.
The jury determined that Google had not violated a different patent that Sonos had filed, and the court instructed the jury to disregard a Sonos expert witness who had suggested that the damages be set at $90 million since part of the material presented had allegedly been inadmissible.
However, this most recent legal dispute may only be the beginning of a string of costly setbacks for the US internet behemoth.
The ruling « re-affirms that Google is a serial infringer of our patent portfolio, as the International Trade Commission has already ruled with respect to five other Sonos patents, » according to Eddie Lazarus, chief legal and financial officer of Sonos.
He continued, saying that « our goal remains for Google to pay us a fair royalty for the Sonos inventions it has appropriated, » adding that « we believe Google infringes more than 200 Sonos patents and today’s damages award. »
In a separate statement to the media, Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels claimed that the company « has always developed technology independently and competed on the merit of our ideas » and that « we are considering our next steps. »
The « next steps » that the Google representative alludes to may be a counterpunch that Google is now launching at Sonos.
The trial for the case began a few weeks ago after the US tech giant filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of speakers for allegedly infringing on its own voice control and smart speaker technologies last August.
When integrating Google’s audio streaming service onto several Sonos products, Sonos and Google were once close friends.
