In a preliminary finding of the International Trade Commission, Google has been found guilty of infringing on Sonos’ patent.
The victory comes after a case going back to early 2020 when Sonos first sued Google, accusing them of infringing on five of the Sonos smart speaker technology patents for a number of Google products, including Google Home, Nest Hubs and Pixel.
According to Sonos, during a 2013 partnership, Google had stolen the technology under the guise of looking over Sonos’s blueprints in order to make its own music service compatible with the products.
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As part of the initial suit, Sonos had also requested a ban on the sale of Google products in the US, including Nest Hubs, Chromecasts, and Pixel smartphone handsets.
Google launched a countersuit in the middle of last year claiming Sonos was not paying a licence fee for using Google’s patented technology for software, networking, search, audio processing, digital-media management and streaming.