The International Trade Commission has issued a exclusion order and a cease and desist order against Google after ruling that it infringed on five patents belonging to Sonos.
has"violated section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, by importing, selling for importation, or selling in the United States after importation certain audio players and controllers, components thereof, and products containing the same that infringe one or more claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,195,258; 10,209,953; 9,219,959; 8,588,949; and 10,439,896.
ITC slaps Google with an exclusion order that could ban the importation of Pixel phones into the U.S. The five patents belong to speaker manufacturer Sonos and the ITC has determined that Google deserves to be slapped with a limited exclusion order and a cease and desist order. The latter forces Google to stop manufacturing and shipping products made overseas and imported into the states that infringe on Sonos' patents. This includes Nest speakers, Chromecast devices, and Pixel smartphones.Those infringing devices will be banned from entry into the U.S.
Sonos sued Google in 2020 after saying that Google took advantage of its partnership with the company to use Sonos' intellectual property on Google's products. Among these patents include one that allows Sonos speakers to connect wirelessly. Google, as you would expect it to do, denied the claims and countersued alleging that Sonos infringed on its patents.
The Sonos patents that the company claims Google used without permission allow users to easily set up a Sonos device that controls home audio systems, the pairing of multiple speakers, the independent volume control of different speakers, and the stereo pairing of speakers.Sonos adds,"There is a possibility that Google will be able to degrade or eliminate product features in a way that circumvents the importation ban that the ITC has imposed.