Sonos Google and Sonos are back in court. After Google lost an earlier patent case over speaker volume controls, Google is now suing Sonos over voice control technology. Google confirmed the lawsuit to The Verge this morning, with the company saying it wants to “defend our technology and challenge Sonos’ clear, ongoing infringement of our patents.” Google claims it infringed 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. Google rarely uses its patents offensively, but this is part of a multi-pronged battle that has caused turmoil in the company’s smart speaker line since Google lost an earlier ruling in January. Instead of paying royalties to Sonos, Google decided to go to customers’ homes and start breaking devices they had already purchased. Google removed Nest Audio and Google Home speakers from being able to control volume for a group of speakers, turning what was an effortless and common sense task into an ordeal that required a screen full of individual sliders. It’s hard to overstate how annoying this is for consumers, as volume control is a basic function of any speaker. Sonos pioneered the concept of connected speakers, but has faced competition from Big Tech giants in recent years. Sonos says it gave Google an inside look at its operations in 2013 while Sonos was pushing for Google Play Music support, and that Google used that access to “blatantly and knowingly copy” Sonos’ technology. Google’s first smart speaker was released three years later.
