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Google has been ordered to pay Sonos $32.5 million for infringing on the corporate’s good speaker patent. A jury verdict issued in a San Francisco courtroom on Friday discovered that Google’s good audio system and media gamers infringed on certainly one of two Sonos patents at subject.
“This can be a slim dispute about some very particular options that aren’t generally used,” Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels says in a press release to The Verge. “Of the six patents Sonos initially asserted, just one was discovered to be infringed, and the remainder had been dismissed as invalid or not infringed. We now have all the time developed know-how independently and competed on the advantage of our concepts. We’re contemplating our subsequent steps.”
Sonos didn’t come out of the case fully victorious, nonetheless, because the jury determined that Google’s House app didn’t infringe on a separate patent filed by Sonos. The choose additionally advised jurors to “disregard a $90 million damages estimate from a Sonos knowledgeable witness, saying he had determined that a few of the proof supplied was inadmissible,” Law360 reports.
The choice will go down as an embarrassing defeat for Google, however each firms had been the topic of blunt criticism from Choose William Alsup, who has presided over many tech firm courtroom battles. Alsup expressed frustration that this case ever went to trial within the first place and the 2 sides had been unable to settle. He mentioned it was “emblematic of the worst of patent litigation.” He additionally famous the technical jargon surrounding the patents at subject, at one level checking with jurors to verify they hadn’t fallen asleep, in line with Law360.
Replace Might twenty sixth, 5:30PM ET: Up to date so as to add a press release from a Google spokesperson.