[Editorial] Google vs Sonos again and again! A federal judge reverts the previous decision!

In a couple of previous articles (namely in April and June) I told you about the endless legal war that has pitted Google against Sonos over an issue related to patents on their smart speakers. It seemed that the final verdict for Google had finally arrived, with a sentence of 32.5 million dollars that Goliath Google would have to pay to little David Sonos. However, it seems that Sonos will not be able to cash that 32.5 million dollar cheque because a few days ago a federal court judge overturned the verdict.

The reason behind the reversal lies in the non-claimable status of the Sonos patents, and for this reason Google is already distributing a software update to restore on their smart speakers the functions that had been blocked due to the legal dispute.

Judge William Alsup, who had already dealt with similar thorny issues such as “Google vs. Oracle”, explained how Sonos had mounted its patent infringement claim in a dubious way, as those claims had been issued after an excessive delay (essentially 13 years late!). In fact, Sonos had submitted a provisional filing application in 2006, but did not file the definitive applications. This only happened in 2019 and 2020, by which time the industry (and therefore Google) had already developed and implemented the ideas set out in those patents.

In other words, it seems that Sonos did not complete the patent filing process, letting those ideas be exploited by others, and then claiming paternity after the fact. It's a legal technicality, obviously, but it's enough to allow Google to restore all the offending features on its devices.
Sonos is obviously not in favor of this and promises further battle. For sure the war isn't over.

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October 2023 editorial

Smart speakers war, it isn't over yet!