Ambika Bhardwaj
Published On: January 07, 2022 at 14:10 IST
The US International Trade Commission has Adjudicated that Google is infringing on five Sonos smart speaker patents.
The Judgement upholds a Judge’s August ruling, and it’s the type of action that could possibly compel Google to stop importing goods that use breaching advanced technologies.
Even so, it is unclear if any particular Google services will necessarily disappear from shelves, and for the time being, this looks unlikely.
“We don’t really anticipate any effect on the ability to import or sell our goods,” Google spokesperson José Castaneda tells The Verge, trying to point out that the International Trade Commission has indeed authorised Google workarounds in each of the five patents, as Bloomberg noted in September.
The Court’s decision finds that Google replicated Sonos technology, which would be a significant setback to Google’s hardware industry, which has been expanding in the smart home area, along with smart speakers, camera systems, and, most notably, Wi-Fi routers, in which the company believes its Google WiFi / Nest WiFi had been the top selling router inside the overall market in 2019.
Google did mention that it created its technology independently and has replicated it from Sonos.