Google's smart speakers and other devices do not violate Sonos' patent rights and can be imported into the United States, a U.S. appeals court affirmed on Monday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a U.S. trade tribunal's decision that Google's redesigns of products, including Google Home speakers, Pixel phones and Nest Hub smart displays, were sufficient to avoid infringing Sonos' multi-room wireless audio patents.
The court also affirmed that the original versions of the devices infringed Sonos' patents.
Sonos said in a statement that the ruling confirms that Google is a «widespread infringer of Sonos's patented inventions that underlie wireless home audio.»
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision.
Google and Sonos have been embroiled in a sprawling intellectual property dispute over smart-speaker technology that has included lawsuits in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands. The companies previously worked together to integrate Mountain View, California-based Google's streaming music service into Sonos products.
Sonos won a $32.5 million patent-infringement verdict against Google last year in California federal court, which a federal judge overturned months later. Google has countered with its own