Electronics – hifi Sonos reigns supreme in patent dispute with Google – Economy

Washington (AFP) – Speaker specialist Sonos has won a patent dispute with Google in the United States. The ITC’s trade body has come to the conclusion that the internet group infringed five hi-fi patents on many of its devices.

The International Trade Center can ban the import of goods into the United States in case of patent infringement. To prevent this, Google has changed some functions on its devices – in the hope that they will not infringe patents anymore.

In the future, users of a group of several networked speakers will have to change the volume for each of them individually rather than changing the volume of them all together. As a reason, Google cited a “recent legal decision” on Friday night.

In the lawsuit filed in early 2020, Sonos targeted several Google devices such as Pixel-branded smartphones and Nest-branded network speakers. The patents relate to technologies for synchronizing audio playback between multiple devices for volume control and a WLAN connection. In turn, Google also sued Sonos with allegations of patent infringement.

With its decision, the committee followed the evaluation of one of its judges published in August. The President of the United States can rescind the import ban imposed by the International Trade Center – which rarely happens.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 220107-99-621435 / 2