Alphabet Inc.'s Google LLC filed two lawsuits Monday in a California federal court, alleging in one that Sonos Inc.’s audio players with a voice-control feature infringe three patents, and in the other that they infringe four different patents, expanding an already heated battle over royalties for various technologies.
Both complaints were filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, where Judge William Alsup last week issued a ruling that canceled a Sonos patent, resolving the second of two issues covered in last month’s “patent showdown” between the longtime partners.
Sonos “started an aggressive and misleading campaign against our products, at the expense of our shared customers,” said José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson. “We prefer innovation to litigation but their actions leave us no choice but to defend our technology and challenge Sonos’s clear, continued infringement of our patents.”
In the new suits, Google says it has provided its Google Assistant software to Sonos “for many years.” Google says its engineers “have worked for years assisting and instructing Sonos engineers” about the inclusion of voice recognition and voice-activated device controls in Sonos’ products.
The tech giant also says Sonos “has made false claims about the companies’ shared work and Google’s...
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