Google Owes Sonos $32.5 Million for Patent Infringement

Alphabet's Google has been ordered to pay Sonos $32.5 million in damages for infringing the company's smart speaker patent. A San Francisco federal jury declared the verdict on Friday.

Sonos vs. Google

After facing off in a San Francisco federal trial over patent infringement claims, a jury ordered a $32.5 million penalty for Google for infringing a patent held by Sonos. According to a report from The Verge, US District Judge William Alsup determined that Google's early version of Chromecast Audio infringed the Sonos' smart speaker patent.

The jury verdict awarded Sonos $2.30 for each of the more than 14 million Google devices that were sold incorporating the patented technology. Sonos' Chief Legal Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Eddie Lazarus, shared his delight for the given time and diligence of the jury in upholding the validity of the company's patents and recognizing the value of their inventions.

"This verdict re-affirms that Google is a serial infringer of our patent portfolio, as the International Trade Commission has already ruled with respect to five other Sonos patents," he added. The company believes that Google infringes more than 200 patents from them. The award today demonstrates the exceptional value of their intellectual property.

But Sonos did not come out of the case completely winning as the jury decided that Google's Home app did not infringe the separate company patent filed by the company. As per the judge, jurors were told to disregard the $90 million damages estimate from Sonos' expert witness and said that he had decided that some provided evidence was "inadmissible."

While this decision will go down as an embarrassing defeat for Google, Judge William Alsup criticized both companies and expressed his frustration that this case event went to trial in the first and two sides were unable to settle. He described this case as the worst patent litigation and noted the technical jargon surrounding the patents.

Google's Response

Google provided Engadget with a statement as a response to this decision. As per the company, the decision is a narrow dispute about some particular features that are not commonly used, especially since only one of the six asserted patents was found to be infringed, with the rest being dismissed as invalid.

Google noted, "We have always developed technology independently and competed on the merit of our ideas. We are considering our next steps." The legal battles between Sonos and Google started all the way back in 2020 when Google was accused of gaining knowledge through prior collaboration to allow the integration of Google Play Music into its speakers.

As per Reuters, this case is part of a sprawling intellectual property dispute between the former business partners, including other lawsuits in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.