In the patent dispute between Sonos and Google, a Northern California federal court rejected one of the patents on which Google based its counterclaim as trivial and removed it from the proceedings. The patent describes a method of comparing the availability of content from different sources and initiating a notification in the event of changes. Sonos had argued that the patent merely described an abstract idea that was not actually patentable, and requested that it be deleted (United States District Court, Northern District Of California: 20 – cv – 03845 – EMC).

Federal judge Edward M. Chen agreed with this line of argument and withdrew the patent from the proceedings. The collection and analysis of information as well as the presentation of the results are the implementation of abstract concepts and not new technical functions, explains Chen with a view to some precedents. The process described in the patent is therefore not patentable. He therefore granted the request for deletion.

Colorful patent mix So Google still has four patents that Sonos is said to have infringed. This is about echo and noise suppression (Patent No. 7, 065, 206), digital rights management (Patent No. 7, 899, 187), personalized search results (patent no. 10, 140, 375) and a system for processing data from networked environmental sensors (patent no. 10, 229, 586).

Sonos had a lawsuit against Google and a complaint in January 2020 filed with the US antitrust regulator. The pioneer in networked loudspeakers is against Google to infringe five Sonos patents with Chromecast technology and various products. Sonos also accuses Google of stealing the Sonos technology after the companies worked together to integrate Google services into Sonos products. The search engine giant responded with a counterclaim for five patents, one of which has now been deleted. At the end of September, Sonos stepped up again and filed another lawsuit in a federal court in Texas.

(vbr)