Litigious Sonos Opts to ‘Compete in the Courtroom,’ Alleges Google

Though Google “rarely sues” other companies for patent infringement, “it must assert its intellectual property rights here,” said its complaint Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleging Sonos products infringe four Google voice control and wireless patents. The complaint extends a yearslong patent fight between the companies. “Google is proud of its multi-year partnership with Sonos, and has worked constructively with Sonos to make the companies’ products work seamlessly,” said the complaint. But Sonos reciprocated by making “false claims about the companies’ shared work and Google’s technology in the lawsuits that Sonos filed against Google,” it said. “Rather than compete on the basis of innovation and product quality, Sonos has decided to compete in the courtroom, and started an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers,” emailed a Google spokesperson. “We prefer innovation to litigation but their actions leave us no choice but to defend our technology and challenge Sonos’s clear, continued infringement of our patents.” He confirmed Google plans to file a Tariff Act Section 337 complaint against Sonos at the International Trade Commission asserting allegations similar to those in the San Francisco complaint. Sonos didn’t comment Tuesday.