The embers of a long-burning patent war between Google and Sonos were stoked anew Wednesday when the Federal Circuit upheld a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruling, knocking out key claims in a Sonos patent and handing Google a procedural triumph in the tangled battlefield of high-tech intellectual property.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that 22 claims in Sonos’s U.S. Patent No. 9,967,615 were “obvious” and unpatentable, affirming the PTAB’s invalidation of the music playback patent — one that Sonos had hoped would bolster its arsenal in a broader war against Google over smart speaker technology.
Judges Unimpressed by Sonos’ Challenge
In its appeal, Sonos argued that the PTAB had erred in finding prior art combinations would motivate a skilled artisan to replicate its patented technology. But Judges Sharon Prost, Richard Linn, and Kara Farnandez Stoll disagreed, siding with the board’s logic and Google’s interpretation.
The opinion was nonprecedential, meaning it won’t carry binding legal weight in other cases, but it delivered a strategic blow nonetheless. Sonos had counted on the ‘615 patent to anchor several claims in a sweeping IP conflict centered on the explosive growth of Google’s Chromecast Audio, Nest, Pixel, and Google Home products.
