A San Francisco federal jury ruled on Friday that Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., had to pay $32.5 million in penalties for violating one of Sonos Inc.’s patents in its cordless audio products. The lawsuit is part of a much larger intellectual property battle between the former collaborators that also spans the United States, Canada, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.
Both companies previously collaborated to include Google’s streaming music service in Sonos products. In 2020, Sonos filed a complaint for patent infringement against Google in Los Angeles and before the US International Trade Commission, alleging that the tech giant had stolen its intellectual property while working with them on products like Google Home and Chromecast Audio.
The ITC granted a limited import ban on a few Google products to Sonos a year ago. In response, Google filed its own patent litigation in California and before the ITC, alleging that Sonos had used its technology in its smart speakers. Google’s litigation has been referred to as an “intimidation tactic” by Sonos to “grind down a smaller rival.” Sonos, situated in Santa Barbara, California, lost about one-fifth of its market worth earlier this month after lowering its revenue projection.
The jury ruled that one of the two Sonos patents in the trial was violated by Google. Sonos had originally sought $3 billion in damages from the court, but after US District Judge William Alsup narrowed the case, Sonos decreased its demand to $90 million. A Google representative stated on Friday that the issue was a “narrow disagreement about some very particular functionalities that are not widely used” and that the firm was thinking about its next course of action. Additionally, Google claimed that it had “always created innovations on its own and competed on the basis of our ideas.” A representative for Sonos stated that the decision “re-affirms that Google is a serial offender of our patent portfolio.”
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