Google has restored some features and functionality to its Google Nest smart speakers following a win in the US courts last week as part of a long-running legal battle with Sonos.
That legal battle centres on some pesky patents. Sonos accused Google of infringing two of its patents on its Google Nest and Chromecast Audio devices. Both patents related to "managing groups of multimedia players (eg 'smart speakers’) in a multiroom system".
In May, a jury sided with Sonos, awarding it $32.5 million in damages. However, Google sought to have that ruling overturned, criticising the way Sonos had filed and presented the patents it was seeking to enforce. The judge considering that argument, William Alsup, shared Google's concerns.
He wrote in a ruling last week: "Sonos filed the provisional application from which the patents in suit claim priority in 2006, but it did not file the applications for these patents and present the asserted claims for examination until 2019. By the time these patents issued in 2019 and 2020, the industry had already marched on and put the claimed invention into practice".
"It is wrong that our patent system was used in this way", he added in the conclusion to his ruling. “With its constitutional underpinnings, this system is intended to promote and protect innovation. Here, by contrast, it was used to punish an innovator and to enrich a pretender by delay and sleight of hand. It has taken a full trial to learn this sad fact, but, at long last, a measure of justice is done".
With all that in mind, Alsup ruled that the patents Sonos was enforcing were - in fact - "unenforceable", and therefore the ruling from May should be overturned.
Sonos, unsurprisingly, now plans to appeal, insisting that Alsup was "wrong on both the facts and law". But that hasn't stopped Google from undoing some changes it previously made to its products as a result of the Sonos legal action.
In a blog post, the tech giant wrote: "We recently made a change to speaker groups for Nest speakers, displays and Chromecast where certain devices can only belong to one speaker group at a time in the Google Home app”.
“A federal judge has found that two patents that Sonos accused our devices of infringing are invalid", it added. "In light of this legal decision we’re happy to share that we will be rolling back this change".