Patent law is dumb.
I hope Google goes nuclear on Sonos with their ridiculously huge patent portfolio just to show everyone just how petty and stupid the patent infringement system is.
Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied
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Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it covers even a dozen different trivial choices then the end result is extremely narrow.
My car looks like a sports car. Not just one corner rounded but look at all the aspects. Only I shall be able to make sports cars. I patented it. /s
Looks like a sports car isn’t a specific design. Compare a Bugatti Veyron with a 911 Turbo. They both have lot’s of rounded edges but somehow they are very easy to tell apart as are every brand of hyper car on the market.
This wasn’t two companies that happened to come up with the same design, this was just blatant copying of pointless aesthetic details, which is illegal.
Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied
#103Infringing on patents need not involve "copying" or "stolen technology", and shitty outlets like Inc. know their framing is BS.
But Sonos claims Google actually did steal the technology. And the court agrees. From the article: Back in 2013, while Google was considering how it could make its music streaming service work on Sonos' speakers, the latter company gave the search giant an inside look at its technology. At the time, it didn't seem like a big deal. Google wasn't making speakers, and it wasn't in the smart home business at all. It woul…
There's an amazingly high number of people not reading this article, even by HN standards.
Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied
#104Sonos thought they just got a sweet revenue stream on a BS patent. Such a mediocre company (Sonos). I'm not saying they are a patent troll company but they aren't too far. As a user with lots of their tech in my house I'm very unimpressed with their offering - this patent defense seems inline with their mediocre tech.
Far from a Google Booster here but just funny to watch their revenue stream go up in flames - probably will impact my sonos experience (less R&D money to spend). Sorry to users that will be impacted - don't worry Google will come out with a volume adjuster in the near term.
Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied
#105Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied
#106i doubt this is the end of it, i hope this gets overruled.
I too hope the 1.82T dollar company doesn't have to pay the company that's roughly 500x smaller than it is.
Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied
#107The basic problem I see here is that you don't own the speakers you have bought. My moral point of view is: I bought the thing so I own it. I must be allowed to understand how it works and I decide what it does. I should be able to change the thing's behavior (if I have the skills) and no one else can do that without my order. Buying locked black boxes is bad (for the customers). Buying locked black boxes that change…
Does the moral situation change if I the seller make you agree not to tamper with the product before I sell it to you, and you do so?
Either I own it or I don't. If you don't want me to tamper with it, then you can't sell it to me. You can give me use of it under some other kind of agreement, but then you can't misrepresent that as a "sale".
Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kinda crappy but i'm sure google has tons of patents on things we would find trivial as well, as far as i'm concerned, let shitty mega corps duke it out.
> let shitty mega corps duke it out The problem with that is that we the customers end up as collateral damage.
i've begun to believe that customers have no power in first place. The most recent example being how youtube just came in and removed the dislike count, and no one could do anything, not only that i bet youtube usage hasn't gone down. These big companies are so entrenched in our minds at this point that they could essentially do whatever and get away with it.
Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use it to play music in multiple rooms... it works great.
Mine's primarily used for intercom, messaging, and simple weather updates, where its main achievement is intercepting audio requests where it tries to answer things I want to do with my phone and thus blocks my phone from providing useful functionality. "I'm sorry I don't know how to do that" yes but my phone does so shut up and get out of the way. Multi-room music playing isn't something I've attempted. Do you have…
I have several google minis, and a couple of google hubs (first gen). You need to group the devices and then tell google to play the songs in that group... it has worked really well for me - so I'm hoping I won't lose that functionality. If they are too close together the speakers struggle to figure out which one is closer to me . For instance, I used to have one in the living room and one in the kitchen (rooms that are close together without a separating wall) and often they will both answer my question. I ended up turning off the mic in one of them.
Every now and then I use it as an intercom but with mixed results.
My take on the google products is that they are far from perfect, but I really don't see anything better out there. I own several Apple products, but when it comes to smart home they have very little to offer, and Siri is far behind the google assistant.
Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied
#110Is the patent 'controlling speakers as a group' or the detailed mechanism that makes it possible?
In the former case, it's not a patent, but just a feature. Patents need to be about how you accomplish features, and need to be non-obvious.