Google again sues Sonos for copying smart speaker, voice control tech

Google on Monday sued high-tech speaker and audio technology company Sonos again, alleging that the company infringed on its patents around smart speakers and voice control technology.

The tech giant filed two lawsuits in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, and plans to file similar lawsuits with the US International Trade Commission soon, reports The Verge.

The lawsuits are being filed to "defend our technology and challenge Sonos's clear, continued infringement of our patents," a Google spokesperson was quoted as saying in the report.

Sonos "started an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers," Google alleged.

In a ruling in January this year, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) said that Google violated five patents of high-tech speaker and audio technology company Sonos, relating to smart speakers.

A US judge had ruled in August last year that Google infringed upon the Sonos patents.

In January 2020, Sonos first sued tech giant Google for allegedly copying its wireless speaker design, urging the ITC to ban Google products like laptops, phones and speakers.

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence testified before the US House antitrust committee that Google "blocked the company from enabling both Amazon's Alexa assistant and the Google Assistant from being active at the same time".

Google had said "we do not expect any impact to our ability to import or sell our products".

According to Sonos, starting in 2016 shortly after the first Google Home was launched, it began warning Google about patent infringement but to no avail.

Sonos said it accused Google of infringing on a total of 100 patents.

Google countersued audio company Sonos for patent infringement, alleging that the tech giant contributed "substantial Google engineering resources" to help Sonos in the past.

Google has always maintained that its technology was developed independently and it was not copied from Sonos.