What you need to know
- Sonos will take Google to court on May 8 over its patent dispute.
- Two patents, 966 and 885, will be dealt with in court while the 033 patent was thrown out by the federal judge for it being “moot.”
- The judge stated Google’s infringement of the 033 patent is set whether it is found guilty or not in the current case.
Sonos’ ongoing battle with tech giant Google is not over, as the two now have a set trial date for the still-active patent dispute.
The set trial date is for the many smart home Google products, such as Nest and Chromecast devices, that infringed on Sonos-owned patents. According to Thurrott, a federal judge’s final ruling, after a mixed verdict, states both companies must be in court on May 8. The trial will bring up two patents the judge saw as meaningful for the case.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup stated, “Google’s motion for summary judgment is granted in part, denied in part, and deferred in part.” While two patents in Sonos’ claim were already invalidated (via Reuters), the issues set to come up in this trial pertain to two other two patents (#10,469,966 and #10,848,885) along with Google’s counterclaims.
Sonos stated, “We look forward to once again demonstrating Google’s widespread infringement.”
As previously mentioned, the Sonos patent infringement ruling went against Google by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in January 2022. That ruling came two years after Sonos’ initial lawsuit against Google in 2020. The result of the January 2022 ruling required Google to stop selling imported products that infringe on the Sonos patents.
The problems didn’t end there as Google clapped back with its own lawsuit against Sonos over voice control technology. At the time, Sonos had just launched Voice Control, a way users could control their music playback with their voice. In a statement, Google said this was in defense as Sonos “started an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers.” However, Sonos has maintained its stance, apparently confident it would win over Google once again in this case, as well.
