Sonos Calls Google’s New Patent Litigation ‘an Intimidation Tactic’

Contrary to Google assertions in a complaint Monday against Sonos in U.S. District Court in San Francisco that it “rarely sues” other companies for patent infringement (see 2208090010), Google previously sued Sonos “all over the world and Sonos has prevailed in every decided case,” said Sonos Chief Legal Officer Eddie Lazarus in a statement Tuesday. “By contrast, the courts have repeatedly validated Sonos’ claims that Google is infringing its core patented smart speaker technology,” said Lazarus. Google’s new litigation is “an intimidation tactic designed to retaliate against Sonos for speaking out against Google’s monopolistic practices,” he said. Google has avoided paying Sonos “a fair royalty for the roughly 200 patents it is currently infringing,” and keeps attempting to “grind down a smaller competitor whose innovations it has misappropriated,” he said. “It will not succeed." Google followed through with threats to bring Sonos before the International Trade Commission, filing two complaints Tuesday (in dockets 337-3634 and 337-3635) alleging infringement of a total of seven patents. The complaints seek separate Tariff Act Section 337 investigations into the allegations. They ask for cease and desist and limited exclusion orders on Sonos audio players with Sonos Voice Control, plus those that support wired or wireless charging or the “commissioning of devices into a system via short-range transmissions.”