Google, still reeling from an earlier ruling, is suing Sonos over audio patents

Google and Sonos are heading to court. After Google lost an earlier patent case over volume controls, Google is now suing Sonos over its voice control technology. Google confirmed the lawsuit to the edge This morning, the company said it wanted to “defend our technology and challenge Sonos’ clear and ongoing infringement of our patents.” Google claims infringement of seven patents related to voice input, including hot word detection and a system that determines which speaker in a group should respond to voice commands.

Sonos usually supports Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa for voice control, but Google and Amazon are also Sonos’ biggest speaker competitors. So Sonos launched its own voice assistant feature in MayWhich opens the door to this new pile of Google patents. (Currently, Sonos supports all three options.)

The Google Scarcely It uses patents aggressively, but that’s part of a multiple lawsuit battle that has sent the company’s smart speaker line swaying after Google lost an earlier ruling in January. Instead of paying royalties to Sonos, Google decided to Access to customers’ homes And start breaking down the hardware they’ve already bought. Google stripped the Nest Audio and Google Home speakers of the ability to control the volume of the speaker array, turning what used to be an easy and logical task into an ordeal that required a screen full of individual sliders. It is difficult to overestimate how annoying consumers are, because volume control is the primary function of any speaker.

Sonos pioneered the connected speaker concept, but it has faced competition from the big tech giants in recent years. Sonos Says Google gave insight into its operations in 2013 while Sonos was seeking support for Google Play Music and that Google used this access to “blatant and thoughtful copying” of Sonos technology. Google’s first smart speaker was launched three years later.