On Tuesday, Sonos sued Google in two federal court systems, seeking financial damages and a ban on the sale of Google’s speakers, smartphones and laptops in the United States. Sonos accused Google of infringing on five of its patents, including technology that lets wireless speakers connect and synchronize with one another.
Sonos’s complaints go beyond patents and Google. Its legal action is the culmination of years of growing dependence on both Google and Amazon, which then used their leverage to squeeze the smaller company, Sonos executives said.
[…]“Google has been blatantly and knowingly copying our patented technology,” Mr. Spence said in a statement. “Despite our repeated and extensive efforts over the last few years, Google has not shown any willingness to work with us on a mutually beneficial solution. We’re left with no choice but to litigate.”
Sonos executives said they decided to sue only Google because they couldn’t risk battling two tech giants in court at once. Yet Mr. Spence and congressional staff members have discussed him soon testifying to the House antitrust subcommittee about his company’s issues with them.
I’ve said it many times before – companies like Google and Amazon have simply become too large, too powerful, and too invulnerable, and this is simply yet another example in a long string of examples.
Break them up.
“Too big to fail” == “too big”, period.
The sooner they fail, the less damage they’ll cause.
As much as I love what they bring, I agree, it’s time for them to scatter to the winds as they have become monolithic and are hurting small innovators and startups.
For me it’s quite ironic that they stifle innovation due to their sheer size, but then there is Apple putting it all back into perspective. Innovation when you do not really have innovation!
I think the warning signs for Google and Amazon have been their since they became their own news articles.
Or it could be Sonos patent trolling with software patents.
kurkosdr,
As much as I’m on board with the narative of google’s sheer scale and power hurting innovation and hurting smaller companies, break google up, you may be right that what sonos is doing is demanding google pay royalties for software patents that are trivial to implement.
All too often software patent holders (patent trolls) sue for millions over software algorithms that developers have independently developed over a few hours or days of work. It’s like with the XML patent against microsoft, I’m not generally rooting for the big corporations in these cases, but the $290M payout for using XML in microsoft office to a small company that had no part in developing the software was sickening.
https://www.cnet.com/news/supreme-court-rules-against-microsoft-in-i4i-patent-case/
In this sonos case, they may or may not have a legitimate case that google copied it’s work, I really don’t know. But if it’s just a case of sonos claiming rights over google’s work simply because they hold software patents and did not contribute anything of material value, then I side with google.
Kurkosdr
How can I tell if you are making a genuine point, or if you are just using tobacco industry type tactics to cast doubt?
This could be the real reason behind the discontinuation of the Audio Chromecast. It was a lawsuit waiting to happen. Potentially a very costly one.
Sonos was very happy to have the dominance over overpriced wireless speakers for a long time. They used their proprietary solution to lock you in and resist for a long time to offer alternate/normal way to use them (bluetooth, etc..). Good riddance.
How to Increase Self Confidence?
Most Visited National Parks in India in 2020?
Which is Top 5 Zoos in India?