Jury awards Sonos $32 million in patent infringement trial

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — One week after the jury in the patent infringement trial between Google and audio products manufacturer Sonos withdrew for deliberations, they got back to work Friday and returned a series of unanimous verdicts. It wasn’t a bad ruling for Google but Sonos came out the winner over all, being awarded $32,507,183.40 in damages.

Was Sonos simply going back in time, as Google’s attorney Sean Pak had earlier asserted, and attempting to assert a monopoly on “old and obvious ideas?”

Jurors were asked to consider a number of questions in their deliberations. Had Google proven by clear and convincing evidence that any of five extant claims pertaining to U.S. Patent No. 10,848,885, which provided a new way to organize and use devices such as smart speakers, are invalid? Jurors said no, but U.S. District Judge William Alsup had already ruled as much before the trial had even begun.

Had Sonos proven that Google infringed with the first claim of the same patent in the new versions of the accused products? Google had insisted it did not because its own product didn’t meet a wide variety of specifications and was not designed for use in any combination infringing upon any claim of U.S. Patent No. 10,469,966. Jurors agreed.

Jurors also found Google did not infringe on the claims pertaining to the original version of the accused products. As to whether Google had done the same in regard to new versions of the products, jurors said no and therefore ruled out willful infringement on Google’s part.

The two-week trial was only the latest in a long series of legal actions the two California-based tech companies have lobbed at each other over the past decade. This time, Google sued seeking a declaratory judgment of non-infringement of six patents relating to multiroom speaker technology, which Alsup eventually pared to two: patents 885 and 966, as they were referred to at trial.

How jurors arrived at the damages awarded Sonos is something of a mystery. With Alsup’s early ruling on the 885 patent, suggested valuations went out the window and jurors were forced to come up with a figure to determine per-unit royalties. While witnesses had suggested the minimum would run at 87 cents per unit, jurors arrived at $2.30.

Jurors leaving the courtroom following the trial declined to comment.

Google and Santa Barbara based-Sonos worked together several years before to help Google services function on Sonos’ brand of speakers. Sonos claimed Google then stole Sonos’ smart speaker technology for use in its own brand, Google Home, as well as other gadgets.

The verdict followed nine days’ worth of complex, technical testimony by both Google and Sonos personnel as well as expert witnesses. Jurors had to navigate complicated explanations of technical minutia and further explanations of dynamic groups, zone settings, and party mode, all classifications denoting smart speakers in various configurations, and how the information about zone groups is stored. They saw timelines that purported to illustrate when each company began using the contested technology.

The trial wrapped up May 19, when jurors went into deliberations for about 90 minutes before recessing for the weekend. Because of other commitments for Alsup, the jury didn't meet again until Friday — and promptly returned the verdict.

Sonos’ lead attorney, Sean Sullivan, declined to comment.

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