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Google was ordered to pay Sonos $32.5 million for infringing the company’s smart speaker patent. A jury verdict delivered Friday in a San Francisco courtroom found that Google’s smart speakers and media players infringed one of the two Sonos patents at issue.
Image: United States District Court for the Northern District of California
“We are deeply grateful for the time and diligence of the jury in maintaining the validity of our patents and recognizing the value of Sonos’ invention of the Zone Scenes,” said Eddie Lazarus, Chief Legal Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Sonos, in a statement to The edge. “This verdict reaffirms that Google is a serial infringer of our patent portfolio, as previously ruled by the International Trade Commission regarding five other Sonos patents. In total, we believe Google is infringing more than 200 Sonos patents and the Today’s damages award, based on a significant piece of our portfolio, demonstrates the exceptional value of our intellectual property. Our goal remains that Google pay us a fair royalty for the Sonos inventions it has appropriated .
“This is a narrow dispute over some very specific features that are not commonly used,” Google spokesman Peter Schottenfels said in a statement. The edge. “Of the six patents originally claimed by Sonos, only one was found to be infringed, and the others were dismissed as invalid or not infringed. We have always developed technology independently and competed on the merits of our ideas. to our next steps.”
However, Sonos did not emerge completely victorious in the case, as the jury ruled that Google’s Home app did not infringe a separate patent filed by Sonos. The judge also told jurors to “disregard an estimate of $90 million in damages from a Sonos expert witness, saying he had ruled some of the evidence given was inadmissible.” Law360 reports.
The ruling will be seen as an embarrassing defeat for Google, but both companies have faced fierce criticism from Judge William Alsup, who has presided over numerous battles in tech company courtrooms. Alsup expressed frustration that this case never went to trial in the first place and the two sides were unable to settle. He said it was “emblematic of the worst in patent litigation.” He also noted the technical jargon surrounding the patents at issue, at one point checking with jurors to make sure they hadn’t fallen asleep, according to Law360.
Update May 26, 7:18 p.m. ET: Added Sonos statement.
