In a preliminary finding of the International Trade Commission, Google has been found guilty of infringing on Sonos’ patent.
 
The victory comes after a case going back to early 2020 when Sonos first sued Google, accusing them of infringing on five of the Sonos smart speaker technology patents for a number of Google products, including Google Home, Nest Hubs and Pixel.
 
According to Sonos, during a 2013 partnership, Google had stolen the technology under the guise of looking over Sonos’s blueprints in order to make its own music service compatible with the products.
 
As part of the initial suit, Sonos had also requested a ban on the sale of Google products in the US, including Nest Hubs, Chromecasts, and Pixel smartphone handsets. 
 
Google launched a countersuit in the middle of last year claiming Sonos was not paying a licence fee for using Google’s patented technology for software, networking, search, audio processing, digital-media management and streaming.