Sonos is suing Google for allegedly infringing on five patents, including technology that syncs wireless speakers.
First reported by The New York Times, the consumer electronics firm seeks financial damages and a U.S. ban on the sale of Google’s speakers, smartphones, and laptops.
In 2013, Sonos partnered with Google to design an integrated home entertainment system, handing over blueprints as part of the alliance. After all, Google was an internet company; it didn’t make smart devices.
Oops.
Sonos has long depended on Google and Amazon for internal business practices and external advertising.
But when the tech titans launched their own branded speakers, Sonos began to feel the noose tighten: Amazon and Google undercut Sonos’s prices and, according to company executives, stole its ideas.
“Google has been blatantly and knowingly copying our patented technology in creative its audio products,” Sonos CEO Patrick Spence said in a statement emailed to Geek.
“Despite our repeated and extensive efforts over the last few years, Google has not shown any willingness to work with us on a mutually beneficial solution,” he continued. “We’re left with no choice but to litigate.”
Sonos sued Google in Federal District Court in Los Angeles and in front of the U.S. International Trade Commission, which has the power to block the import of goods that violate copyrights.
Officially, Sonos named only five patents, but claims Google and Amazon each violated roughly 100, the paper reported.
In a statement to the Times, Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said the businesses discussed their intellectual property for years, “and we are disappointed that Sonos brought these lawsuits instead of continuing negotiations in good faith.”
“We dispute these claims and will defend them vigorously,” Castaneda added.
Amazon—Sonos’s possible next target—seconded that emotion, telling the newspaper that “the Echo family of devices and our multi-room music technology were developed independently by Amazon.”
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