Sonos awarded $32.5M from Google over patent infringement

Google should pay Sonos $32.5 million USD (about $44.2 million for computer-aided design) after a jury decision found the inquiry Goliath encroached on Sonos' speaker patent.

On Friday, the decision was made in a courtroom in San Francisco. It comes as a result of a lengthy legal dispute over smart speaker technology that saw Sonos accuse Google of imitating its multiroom-audio technology. At the U.S. International Trade Commission, Sonos prevailed, resulting in a limited import ban for some Google devices. Google likewise needed to pull a few highlights from its shrewd speakers and showcases.

Google countersued Sonos in August, claiming that the speaker manufacturer infringed on several of its smart speaker patents. The trial for that lawsuit began in May, and now we are here.

The jury decided that one of the two Sonos patents was violated by Google. Although not everything went Sonos' way, the decision will generally be remembered as a victory. The jury did not find that another Sonos patent was violated by Google's Home app. In addition, the adjudicator taught the legal hearers to ignore a gauge from one Sonos master observer assessing harms at $90 million USD (about $123 million computer-aided design).

Additionally, The Verge reports that the judge criticized both businesses. Judge William Alsup called the case "emblematic of the worst of patent litigation" because he was disappointed that it went to trial.

"This decision re-confirms that Google is a chronic infringer of our patent portfolio, as the Worldwide Exchange Commission has previously controlled five other Sonos licenses. On the whole, we accept Google encroaching in excess of 200 Sonos licenses, and the present harms grant, in view of one significant piece of our portfolio, shows the outstanding worth of our protected innovation. In a statement to The Verge, Sonos stated, "Our goal remains for Google to pay us a fair royalty for the Sonos inventions it has appropriated."

However, according to Google, "This is a narrow dispute about some very specific features that are not commonly used," as stated by The Verge. Only one of the six patents Sonos initially asserted was found to be infringed upon, and the remaining patents were deemed invalid or not infringed upon. We have always competed based on the merits of our ideas and independently developed technology. We are thinking about our subsequent stages."

Source - Mobilesyrup