Sonos Gets Early Patent Victory Against Google Smart Speakers (arstechnica.com) 60
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Sonos scored an early victory in its case against Google Friday, when the US International Trade Commission ruled that Google infringed five of Sonos' smart speaker patents. The ruling is preliminary and subject to a full ITC review, but it could lead to a ban on Google smart speakers. In January 2020, Sonos brought a patent infringement case against Google targeting Google's smart speakers, the Google Home, and later the Nest Audio line. Sonos is the originator of Internet-connected speakers that easily hook up to streaming services, while Google speakers combine a similar feature set with voice-activated Google Assistant commands. To hear Sonos tell the story, Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' hardware in 2013, when Google agreed to build Google Play Music support for Sonos speakers. Sonos claims Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' audio features for the Google Home speaker, which launched in 2016.
TechCrunch got statements from both sides of the fight. First up, Sonos Chief Legal Officer Eddie Lazarus told the site, "Today the ALJ has found all five of Sonos' asserted patents to be valid and that Google infringes on all five patents. We are pleased the ITC has confirmed Google's blatant infringement of Sonos' patented inventions. This decision re-affirms the strength and breadth of our portfolio, marking a promising milestone in our long-term pursuit to defend our innovation against misappropriation by Big Tech monopolies." Meanwhile, Google said, "We do not use Sonos' technology, and we compete on the quality of our products and the merits of our ideas. We disagree with this preliminary ruling and will continue to make our case in the upcoming review process." A final ruling should happen on December 13, and it's not just speakers that could be banned if the two companies don't make nice. The products that connect to those speakers, like Pixels and Chromecasts, could also be banned.
TechCrunch got statements from both sides of the fight. First up, Sonos Chief Legal Officer Eddie Lazarus told the site, "Today the ALJ has found all five of Sonos' asserted patents to be valid and that Google infringes on all five patents. We are pleased the ITC has confirmed Google's blatant infringement of Sonos' patented inventions. This decision re-affirms the strength and breadth of our portfolio, marking a promising milestone in our long-term pursuit to defend our innovation against misappropriation by Big Tech monopolies." Meanwhile, Google said, "We do not use Sonos' technology, and we compete on the quality of our products and the merits of our ideas. We disagree with this preliminary ruling and will continue to make our case in the upcoming review process." A final ruling should happen on December 13, and it's not just speakers that could be banned if the two companies don't make nice. The products that connect to those speakers, like Pixels and Chromecasts, could also be banned.
Yeah don't do that. Especially when it's patented (Score:5, Interesting)
> Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' hardware in 2013, when Google agreed to build Google Play Music support for Sonos speakers. Sonos claims Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos'
I had a company / dev team do that to me. They said they wanted to build some interoperability, which would have made sense. Their product and mine complemented each other. We had calls and they asked a lot of questions.
A few months later, they released a blatant rip-off of our product, though they accidentally reversed the sense of one important condition. It was pretty obvious they had copied some of our code without actually understanding it.
Their copycat product was on the market for about 48 hours before I got that shit shut down.
If you want to create a competing product, go for it. We had a couple of competitors, one of which was pretty decent. There's no problem with that. If a customer was not happy with our product or it didn't fit their needs, I had no problem suggesting that they try the competitor. What one shouldn't do is lie and cheat to get IP under false pretenses. That pisses people off and makes them want to do whatever they can to shut you down.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
patents are published and public.
"sneaking a peek" is more of a trade secrets claim.
Sonos claiming that Google snuck a peek at their patents doesn't actually make any sense.
Re: (Score:2)
The claim is that they deceptively gained access to the trade secrets and non-public information (pissing Sonos off), so now Sonos is fighting back with the patents, which cover some of the same *subject matter*. Same subject matter doesn't mean identical.
I get it because when someone deceptively got access to our trade secrets / non-public information, I was ready to hit back with anything and everything I could. Legal action, public statements highlighting their misbehaviour to the market they sell to (p
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying that Google getting to know the Sonos' product's features and then copying those features, is like your code copying example?
Re: (Score:2)
Sonos thinks so.
In both instances, the other party pretended to be working on a collaborative effort; they said they wanted to work together, and used that as a cover for getting non-public info. According to Sonos.
Re: Yeah don't do that. Especially when it's paten (Score:2)
The Sonos episode with bricking perfectly good hardware followed on from the Google collaboration too. Coincidence, or did they copy that product feature from Google?
"banned" (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Illegal to be made, used, sold, offered for sale, or imported to the US.
Re: (Score:1)
Patent quality (Score:5, Insightful)
Before everyone starts attacking Google for stealing the small guy's work, one of the patents in question was controlling two speakers' volume with a single volume slider. I'd say that if anything, Sonos is looking more like a patent troll than an innocent innovator.
Which patent are you think of? (Score:2)
Which of the patents are you thinking of?
The closest I'm finding is the other way around. A way of determining the volume of each sound when a single speaker (with a volume setting) is playing multiple types of sounds (apps) that may have their own volume setting, from different sources, each with it's own volume control. Meaning for each sound you may have three conflicting volume settings, and it's playing multiple sounds with different set_volume() commands..
Re: (Score:2)
https://patents.google.com/pat... [google.com]
That's not what that patent says (Score:2)
US8588949B2 is not a patent on controlling the volume of multiple speakers. Rather, it's about saving and restoring groupings of source-to-output mappings.
A system described by US8588949B2 has at minimum the following:
Multiple sources, such as a video game console, FM radio, CD player, weather radio, etc.
Multiple output speakers in different locations, such as the bedroom, kitchen, living room, front porch, garden tub, kids room.
A controller which does all of the following:
Allow the user to create groups of
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying I'm wrong because not only can you control the volume of grouped players, you play content through the groups? Adding the second or third (play, next, etc) just-as-fundamental control to the group on top of volume doesn't upgrade the idea from 'obvious' to 'non-obvious'.
Rule of thumb for patents and legal issues (Score:2)
By here's a useful rule of thumb regarding patents and other legal issues. When a team of patent lawyers from Google (who have actually read the patent) can't come up with any reason it's invalid, and you think you thought of a reason in just a few seconds without reading it, one of two things is true:
A) You actually do know more about patent law and about the patent you didn't read than Google's team of patent lawyers does
B) You're suffering from an extreme bout of conceit that's about to cause you to make
Re: (Score:2)
You're confusing me attacking the patent system and those that exploit it for me thinking I am better than google.
You have no idea how much I know about patent law, whether or not I've read the patent, nor my arrangements with Google. I suppose it would be fair to assume I'm not working for google's legal team on this case because it would not be in my best interest to discuss it online non-anonyously.
Re: (Score:2)
> You have no idea how much I know about patent law, whether or not I've read the patent,
You made it quite obvious that you hadn't read it when you said it was a patent on volume control.
Remember that option B, making yourself look really silly by trying to pretend you're about 50X more knowledgeable that you actually are? Yeah, you're doing it again.
To look less foolish, a good response would be "yeah, a team of the best patent lawyers probably knows more about patents than I do".
Re: (Score:2)
You, my friend, are the one that compared me to Google's legal team, not I. I'm avoiding addressing the comparison itself because, so far, the arguments presented have been logically fallacious and irrelevant to the point I was originally trying to make: Sonos was awarded a bad patent and are now exploiting it; Google isn't the bad guy here.
You have also apparently mistaken my intentional simplification of an intentionally obfuscated patent for not understanding what it covers.
Re: (Score:2)
> Sonos was awarded a bad patent and are now exploiting it;
And yet Google's team of patent lawyers can't find the problem with the patent. (The patent they actually read).
You truly STILL can't see your arrogance?
Patenting being able to group settings!! (Score:3)
Any competent engineer "skilled in the art" could have designed that. If your analysis is correct then they have patented a problem, not a solution. But of course, it is virtually impossible to know what a patent really covers, certainly not without a lot of time spent deciphering it.
But it sounds like a bullshit patent. Like many if not most are. However, the "Inventive Step" test has become virtually meaningless, the only real defense is Prior Art. So if nobody else applied this obvious technique to
Re: (Score:2)
So what if someone else 'could have designed that'? That has absolutely nothing to do with if it patentable or not.
'Obvious' means BEFORE you have seen the patent or its implementation. There is nothing obvious about this patent (or most patents).
Re: (Score:2)
how is all of that considered "non obvious" ?
Re: (Score:2)
Well it wasn't the least bit obvious to GP *even after he claims to have read the patent*. He says he read that patent and yet *still* couldn't grasp the idea. He thought it had something to do with volume control. Lol.
Note that obviousness refers to BEFORE the patented invention, do people do that as a matter of course, is it obvious to everyone BEFOREHAND. A lot of things "just make sense" AFTER you have seen them. That's not obvious as the term is used in patent law. In patent law, the idea is whether o
Re: (Score:2)
Amen. "Obvious" should just ignored as one criteria.
I look at Patents applications this way (Is this how the Patent Office looks at them?) - if you submit a patent application the immediate answer is always "Yes"!
They need a reason - a solid, backed by evidence (hint: prior art) reason to say No. They may point out problems of the statements - not formatted right, wrong wording, that's too broad a claim - but by and large they need a concrete reason to say No. That they can back up by proof.
Re: (Score:2)
US8588949B2 is not a patent on controlling the volume of multiple speakers. Rather, it's about saving and restoring groupings of source-to-output mappings.
A system described by US8588949B2 has at minimum the following:
Multiple sources, such as a video game console, FM radio, CD player, weather radio, etc.
Multiple output speakers in different locations, such as the bedroom, kitchen, living room, front porch, garden tub, kids room.
A controller which does all of the following:
Allow the user to create groups of outputs, such as "music" and SAVE those groups.
How is that different from the presets on the routing switchers (a.k.a. matrix switchers) that we used in the broadcast TV industry back in the 1990s? I must be missing something.
Re: (Score:2)
Broadcast TV switches would have multiple inputs. There the similarity ends.
They aren't routing camera 1 to certain neighbors, camera 2 to other neighborhoods, camera 3 to a different group, and having entirely different groups of neighborhoods for different times of day.
Re: (Score:2)
Broadcast TV switches would have multiple inputs. There the similarity ends.
They aren't routing camera 1 to certain neighbors, camera 2 to other neighborhoods, camera 3 to a different group, and having entirely different groups of neighborhoods for different times of day.
Yes, they actually do, possibly minus the "times of day" part; it's more on a per-use-case basis, which might be time-related or might not be.
If you just need to feed multiple inputs to a single output, you buy a cheap switcher designed for that purpose. The only reason to spend the extra money for a matrix switcher (or, realistically, several matrix switchers) is when you need to route different combinations of inputs (cameras, VCRs, the main video switcher, satellite feeds, etc.) to different outputs (in
Re: (Score:2)
Google's lawyers might find your post interesting, and potentially useful. Possibly.
Re: (Score:2)
My dad's old stereo receiver from the 1980s can "control the volume of two speakers with a single volume slider". Also, you can plug multiple inputs into it, and sometimes the inputs all have different volume levels! Imagine that! What exactly did Sonos patent again?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The sound cars in your computer controls the volume of the sound your computer produces. The patent that GP linked to is actually LESS relevant than another I found, but neither refers to mixing sounds on a single device (the computer).
Rather, it's about sending out commands to groups of devices in other rooms, automatically reconfiguring devices into different groups at different times of day, and how that should all work. So for example in the morning you want want music in the bedroom, kitchen, and front
Re: (Score:2)
I think you accidentally replied to o the wrong comment. Maybe even the wrong story / page.
Re:Which patent are yu think of? (Score:2)
Ah, I see what you're saying now. I would agree, they may have done better by not having the functionality than either licensing or infringing that patent.
Sonos has a number of patents in this space, different things to do with a network of sources and outputs that are centrally controlled. For some reason, Google may have decided to infringe "the Sonos patents" and not considered each one individually to the extent they could have.
From contentious meetings I've been in, I could see how a meeting could resu
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The Yamaha receiver allows you to save different speak let groups, so you can say that the front left and right speakers are part of the "music" group in the morning, then in the evening you press a button and the same front right speaker becomes part of the "news" group, while the "music" group then contains the two left speakers"?
If so, Google's legal team would love to here about that.
But - I don't think any receiver has ever had such speaker groups, sending different sources to different speaker groups,
Re: (Score:3)
one of the patents in question was controlling two speakers' volume with a single volume slider.
This is eminently more of an invention than many of the things Google or Apple have patented, such as the friggin' shape of the iPhone.
The technology and underlying methods to manage two Audio players from a single UI are far from trivial - Sonos can of course patent their novel implementation of it which would have been an invention.
Sonos is Not a troll, because not only did they make actual product using the
Re: (Score:3)
Agreed that no one, including Google and Apple, should be allowed to patent obvious things. I suspect the iPhone shape is a design patent though.
IDK, I think the implementation being patented here is trivial.
There isn't one definition of patent troll. I consider anyone abusing the system to be a troll.
It's Sonos's desire to want exclusive rights to sell trivial implementations that's so disgusting.
Re: (Score:2)
It's Sonos's desire to want exclusive rights to sell trivial implementations that's so disgusting.
These are not trivial implementations, As evidenced by the fact that Sonos since before 2006 have been apparently from the start and almost the entire time the only consumer multi-room music system with such capabilities based on IP over a wireless mesh network.
If it were all so trivial, there would clearly have been at least 1 implementation of that prior: which there was not. The validity of a patent from b
Re: (Score:2)
Someone else implementing this is not a requisite for it to be trivial.
I did multi-room sync in Visual Basic around 2001.
Squeezebox software does this, though I'm not sure when it was implemented.
Re: (Score:2)
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So put up your evidence
Re: (Score:2)
The first time someone rights hello world in a new programming language, it's the first time but still trivial.
I wrote the VB app in high school Archive.org shows I had a beta up in October 2000.
Squeezebox synced players in 2002.
https://github.com/Logitech/sl... [github.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You claimed that you implemented something that invalidated the specific implementation. Put up your extraordinary evidence.
Patents cover specific implementations, and the Sonos patent Ray Morris linked covered an implementation that was not obvious, including to professional engineers in the A/V field.
Patents do not cover ideas or broad concepts, only specific implementation. And that applies to prior art too.
Re: (Score:2)
You misread what I said, you're incorrect on what patents cover and don't cover, and you aren't the arbiter on what's obvious.
Re: (Score:3)
Before everyone starts attacking Google for stealing the small guy's work, one of the patents in question was controlling two speakers' volume with a single volume slider.
https://patentimages.storage.g... [googleapis.com]
No it doesn't claim anything like what you said. Here's claim 1, the meaty one, duplicated in claims 8 and 15:
A multimedia controller including a processor, the controller configured to: provide a user interface for a player group, wherein the player group includes a plurality of players in a local area network, and wherein each player is an independent playback device configured to playback a multimedia output from a multimedia Source; ...
That's not using a volume slider to control two speakers. It's solely about using the UI to control independent playback devices over the network. A speaker isn't an independent playback device.
It's true that the outwardly visible effect is that the volume of two speakers will be controlled by one slider. But there are very many inventions that would allow that outw
Re: (Score:2)
That's a very confusing way to describe a venn diagram of computers. There's nothing novel here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
All of which means absolutely nothing because patents do not cover ideas or concepts. They cover IMPLEMENTATIONS. How many of the things you listed were implemented in the way described by these patents? None.
What happens to already sold products (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
If they lose, and Sonos does not license the patents to Google, it would be illegal to use the devices. I imagine a class action suit would quickly compel Google to buy the devices back. This is what happened when Kodak was found infringing on Polaroid patents.
Next up... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sonos has a market cap of about 5B USD...
Alphabet has a market cap of 1.84T USD
Alphabet gobbles up Sonos with next month's pocket change
Google Play Music? (Score:1)
Google just killed Google Play Music, following their usual tactic of killing services once they became something good, and replacing them if they bother at all with something that's really awful? Because YouTube Music certainly qualifies as something awful.
> when Google agreed to build Google Play Music support for Sonos speakers
Was this part of Googles battle was Sonos, since YouTube Music is probably not included in this agreement? If so, boo to Google.