Google has sued Sonos, alleging that its new voice assistant violates seven patents associated to its personal Google Assistant expertise, CNET has reported. It’s the newest salvo in a long-running sensible speaker battle between the businesses, with every suing and countersuing the opposite following a interval once they labored collectively.
“[Sonos has] started an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers,” a Google spokesperson stated in a press release.
Sonos’ Voice Control assistant arrived in June, letting customers give instructions with the phrase “Hey Sonos,” very like Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant. In the criticism, Google stated it “worked for years with Sonos engineers on the implementation of voice recognition and voice-activated devices control in Sonos products… even providing its Google Assistant software to Sonos for many years.”
The struggle erupted in early 2020 when Sonos sued Google for alleged patent infringement after the businesses had collaborated for a number of years. Sonos claimed that Google gained information of its expertise once they labored collectively and used that data to develop its personal sensible speaker line. The firm filed one other swimsuit in September 2020, claiming that Google infringed on 5 extra patents.
Google countersued, alleging that Sonos was utilizing Google’s search, software program, networking, audio processing and different expertise with out paying a license price and made “false claims” about their work collectively
In 2021, the US International Trade Commission dominated that Google infringed on 5 Sonos patents. That compelled Google to alter the best way its audio system had been set as much as keep away from an import ban. Most of these had been associated to the best way speaker teams are managed — as an illustration, customers can now not change the amount of a bunch of audio system and should modify them individually as an alternative.
“Google previously sued us all over the world and Sonos has prevailed in every decided case,” Sonos’ chief authorized officer Eddie Lazarus informed CNET. “[The latest lawsuits] are an intimidation tactic designed to retaliate against Sonos for speaking out against Google’s monopolistic practices.”
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