4 ms·

Google infringed on five Sonos patents, according to preliminary ruling

47 points by ckrailo 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cosmotic 5y ago
What are the patents?
- jand 5y ago
  8,588,949 - Method and apparatus for adjusting volume levels in a multi-zone system 9,195,258 - System and method for synchronizing operations among a plurality of independently clocked digital data processing devices 9,219,959 - Multi-channel pairing in a media system 10,209,953 - Playback device 10,439,896 - Playback device connection
- Tuna-Fish 5y ago
  9,195,258: System and method for synchronizing operations among a plurality of independently clocked digital data processing devices https://patents.google.com/patent/US9195258B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9195258B2/en 10,209,953: Playback device https://patents.google.com/patent/US10209953B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10209953B2/en 9,219,959: Multi-channel pairing in a media system https://patents.google.com/patent/US9219959B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9219959B2/en 8,588,949: Method and apparatus for adjusting volume levels in a multi-zone system https://patents.google.com/patent/US8588949B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8588949B2/en 10,439,896: Playback device connection https://patents.google.com/patent/US10439896B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10439896B2/en
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    Pro tip #1: Just read Claim 1, to get the gist. That doesn't suffice for a serious analysis, of course, but it pretty well tells you what the patent is about. Generally, these are about two or more output devices (speakers?) coordinating with each other. There might be dependent claims about waving your phone around, but I didn't read that far. Pro tip #2: the priority date(s). These seem to be 2003, 2004, and 2006. Those were all well within the internet era. So if you think "everyone was doing that!" you have to prove it with prior art before those dates. You can be certain the tech advisors in Patent Litigation have been trying to do that.
    - cosmotic 5y ago
      These are pretty low-quality patents. I'm curious if Google tried to attack the non-obvious requirement. These seem like straight-forward naive UIs.
      - AlbertCory 5y ago
        On legal matters: those who know, don't talk, and those who talk, don't know. That said: I don't know. The claims weren't about UIs, AFAICT -- they were mostly about network sync'ing of the speakers. I also never dealt with ITC matters. Quite different from a "regular" infringement suit.
encryptluks2 5y ago
This is ridiculous. Pretty soon you don't be able to stream to a Raspberry Pi connected to a speaker without violating a patent. Their failure to even state what the patent is leads me to believe it is something basic like this which means I will never buy a Sonos product.
- dmoy 5y ago
  > you don't be able to stream to a Raspberry Pi connected to a speaker without violating a patent Nobody is gonna send you a c&d for personal use
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Will they kill an open source project?
    - TrueDuality 5y ago
      In general yes, companies have no qualms about killing open source projects when they get a whiff of patent infringement. AFAIK Sonos hasn't done that to any projects as of today but that doesn't mean they wouldn't.
      - squarefoot 5y ago
        They sure are on par with Google in caring not that much about their users. https://www.classaction.org/news/sonos-docked-with-class-action-after-forced-phase-out-of-cr100-speaker-controller https://www.classaction.org/news/sonos-docked-with-class-act...
  - praptak 5y ago
    > Nobody is gonna send you a c&d for personal use Practically, no. Theoretically they could. I believe there's no "personal use" exemption on patents under most law systems (there was one in UK maybe?).
    - 5y ago
omarhaneef 5y ago
This article had a cursory description of the patent(s) that was (were) allegedly violated: https://www.engadget.com/sonos-google-itc-compliant-initial-ruling-220232437.html https://www.engadget.com/sonos-google-itc-compliant-initial-... Looks like the primary, initial complaint was around the tuning feature for the speakers. There is a link to subsequent complaints. If you have a Sonos, when you first set up a speaker you use wave your mobile around while the speaker emits a tone and your phone mic sends it feedback on how to optimize the sound.
- rasz 5y ago
  Werent there audio system calibrators in the nineties doing room calibration in similar manner (microphone on a cable)?
  - Justin_K 5y ago
    Yep my Denon did this in 2000
  - moftz 5y ago
    I had an old Bose surround sound system that did the same thing. You'd place the mic in the best seat in the room and it'd tune the phase to center the sound.
  - Tostino 5y ago
    My Sony surround sound box does this too...
amanzi 5y ago
Hopefully, once they've sorted out their patent squabbles, Sonos and Google can enable better integration between their systems. Right now, Sonos's Google Home/Assistant integration feels half-baked, and playing music is a much better experience on iOS due to the AirPlay 2 integration.
- aardvarkr 5y ago
  That’s entirely on Google and it pisses me off. It goes beyond squabbles as Google has repeatedly dealt in bad faith with Sonos to the detriment of the consumer. I still remember seeing Sonos demoing both Alexa and Google active on one speaker and also remember the hissy fit Google threw and the fallout when they withdrew from the project. It took two years for Google to come back to the table and the result is the intentionally crippled implementation that you see today
hermannj314 5y ago
It would be awesome if when reading a news article on court cases or patents, that your browser could automatically inform you about the actual patent or court case given the content of the article. But implementing that would probably violate Microsoft patent on 'Extensibility for context-aware digital personal assistant' or one of the millions of other patents. It is better to not make that feature at all I guess. I am not sure how anything gets made, unless you ignore patents, and then see if you get sued. No way the typical start-up is cognizant of the millions of patents they could potentially be violating. It would be impossible to even try to keep that in your head when being creative.
- decremental 5y ago
  The first thing that came to mind is the banner under YouTube videos that appears when YouTube wants to insert their point of view about something. "This video is about X. Find out more about X." Imagine the power one could wield if you controlled such a feature with wide adoption.
- whydid 5y ago
  Researching and linking these things was classically the job of the journalist.

47 points by ckrailo 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cosmotic 5y ago

What are the patents?

jand 5y ago
8,588,949 - Method and apparatus for adjusting volume levels in a multi-zone system 9,195,258 - System and method for synchronizing operations among a plurality of independently clocked digital data processing devices 9,219,959 - Multi-channel pairing in a media system 10,209,953 - Playback device 10,439,896 - Playback device connection
Tuna-Fish 5y ago
9,195,258: System and method for synchronizing operations among a plurality of independently clocked digital data processing devices https://patents.google.com/patent/US9195258B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9195258B2/en 10,209,953: Playback device https://patents.google.com/patent/US10209953B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10209953B2/en 9,219,959: Multi-channel pairing in a media system https://patents.google.com/patent/US9219959B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US9219959B2/en 8,588,949: Method and apparatus for adjusting volume levels in a multi-zone system https://patents.google.com/patent/US8588949B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8588949B2/en 10,439,896: Playback device connection https://patents.google.com/patent/US10439896B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10439896B2/en
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  Pro tip #1: Just read Claim 1, to get the gist. That doesn't suffice for a serious analysis, of course, but it pretty well tells you what the patent is about. Generally, these are about two or more output devices (speakers?) coordinating with each other. There might be dependent claims about waving your phone around, but I didn't read that far. Pro tip #2: the priority date(s). These seem to be 2003, 2004, and 2006. Those were all well within the internet era. So if you think "everyone was doing that!" you have to prove it with prior art before those dates. You can be certain the tech advisors in Patent Litigation have been trying to do that.
  - cosmotic 5y ago
    These are pretty low-quality patents. I'm curious if Google tried to attack the non-obvious requirement. These seem like straight-forward naive UIs.
    - AlbertCory 5y ago
      On legal matters: those who know, don't talk, and those who talk, don't know. That said: I don't know. The claims weren't about UIs, AFAICT -- they were mostly about network sync'ing of the speakers. I also never dealt with ITC matters. Quite different from a "regular" infringement suit.

encryptluks2 5y ago

This is ridiculous. Pretty soon you don't be able to stream to a Raspberry Pi connected to a speaker without violating a patent. Their failure to even state what the patent is leads me to believe it is something basic like this which means I will never buy a Sonos product.

dmoy 5y ago
> you don't be able to stream to a Raspberry Pi connected to a speaker without violating a patent Nobody is gonna send you a c&d for personal use
- monocasa 5y ago
  Will they kill an open source project?
  - TrueDuality 5y ago
    In general yes, companies have no qualms about killing open source projects when they get a whiff of patent infringement. AFAIK Sonos hasn't done that to any projects as of today but that doesn't mean they wouldn't.
    - squarefoot 5y ago
      They sure are on par with Google in caring not that much about their users. https://www.classaction.org/news/sonos-docked-with-class-action-after-forced-phase-out-of-cr100-speaker-controller https://www.classaction.org/news/sonos-docked-with-class-act...
- praptak 5y ago
  > Nobody is gonna send you a c&d for personal use Practically, no. Theoretically they could. I believe there's no "personal use" exemption on patents under most law systems (there was one in UK maybe?).
  - 5y ago

omarhaneef 5y ago

This article had a cursory description of the patent(s) that was (were) allegedly violated: https://www.engadget.com/sonos-google-itc-compliant-initial-ruling-220232437.html https://www.engadget.com/sonos-google-itc-compliant-initial-... Looks like the primary, initial complaint was around the tuning feature for the speakers. There is a link to subsequent complaints. If you have a Sonos, when you first set up a speaker you use wave your mobile around while the speaker emits a tone and your phone mic sends it feedback on how to optimize the sound.

rasz 5y ago
Werent there audio system calibrators in the nineties doing room calibration in similar manner (microphone on a cable)?
- Justin_K 5y ago
  Yep my Denon did this in 2000
- moftz 5y ago
  I had an old Bose surround sound system that did the same thing. You'd place the mic in the best seat in the room and it'd tune the phase to center the sound.
- Tostino 5y ago
  My Sony surround sound box does this too...

amanzi 5y ago

Hopefully, once they've sorted out their patent squabbles, Sonos and Google can enable better integration between their systems. Right now, Sonos's Google Home/Assistant integration feels half-baked, and playing music is a much better experience on iOS due to the AirPlay 2 integration.

aardvarkr 5y ago
That’s entirely on Google and it pisses me off. It goes beyond squabbles as Google has repeatedly dealt in bad faith with Sonos to the detriment of the consumer. I still remember seeing Sonos demoing both Alexa and Google active on one speaker and also remember the hissy fit Google threw and the fallout when they withdrew from the project. It took two years for Google to come back to the table and the result is the intentionally crippled implementation that you see today

hermannj314 5y ago

It would be awesome if when reading a news article on court cases or patents, that your browser could automatically inform you about the actual patent or court case given the content of the article. But implementing that would probably violate Microsoft patent on 'Extensibility for context-aware digital personal assistant' or one of the millions of other patents. It is better to not make that feature at all I guess. I am not sure how anything gets made, unless you ignore patents, and then see if you get sued. No way the typical start-up is cognizant of the millions of patents they could potentially be violating. It would be impossible to even try to keep that in your head when being creative.

decremental 5y ago
The first thing that came to mind is the banner under YouTube videos that appears when YouTube wants to insert their point of view about something. "This video is about X. Find out more about X." Imagine the power one could wield if you controlled such a feature with wide adoption.
whydid 5y ago
Researching and linking these things was classically the job of the journalist.