Sonos Inc. has successfully defended its legal victory against Google in a patent dispute involving smart speaker technology. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld Sonos' win on Friday, rejecting Google's claims that its smart speakers infringed on a patent related to blocking access to proprietary digital content.
The court ruled that Sonos speakers linked to stream the same music do not practice the technology covered by U.S. Patent No. 7,899,187. The key point in the decision was that only one speaker in a linked group directly utilizes a decryption key, while the others use it indirectly. The patent only covers direct use, so Sonos was found not to infringe.
The Federal Circuit's decision was made in an unpublished opinion, which means it does not set a formal legal precedent but affirms the lower court's ruling in favor of Sonos. The case centered on whether Sonos' multi-room audio system infringed on Google's patent for technology that restricts access to digital content.