Sonos Sues Lenbrook for Bluesound and BluOS, Alleging Patent Infringement

Wonder who’s next.... Apple?

I don't know how to feel about this. I admit I don't know enough about patent law to know what's right here. However, a couple of those patents sound very broad. Is the patent on synchronizing the speakers, or the exact method of synchronization. I don't really like the idea of something that's really essential to the concept of multiroom being protected. You can't have real multiroom without it. It'd be like patenting 4WD, not a specific mechanism or suspension providing 4WD.

I want competition. I love my Sonos - have 8 devices and 7 zones now. But I also want some upstarts or even bigwigs keeping Sonos on their toes.

The idea of a patent is to encourage individuals and companies to spend significant time and resources developing technology, sometimes spawning a new industry, then share this idea with the public. The limited, protected use during the patent term allows the originator to have exclusive use of the technology or share it for a fee. After the patent expires (typically 20 years) the technology is in the public domain. The ultimate goal is to encourage spread of the technology as far as possible.

An alternate strategy is a "trade secret", but if there is a leak or parallel discovery, the advantage is gone. Trade secrets can work very well for some items, such as food and beverages. The founder or an heir keeps the formula locked in a safe and periodically brews a batch of flavor elixir while locked in a secret lab.

I understand the reasoning, but that depends on the quality of the patents themselves, and making sure they're well written and specific.

Working in technology myself, I also wonder if the 20 year timeframe isn't out of date in the software age. Digital technology moves pretty darn fast.

As I said, I don't know how to feel about this. The good and bad effects on the whole multiroom audio industry are not cut and dried on either side.

I think Sonos' response to this article (CEPro is often biased against Sonos, as it's a mouthpiece for Custom Installers) is spot on. It costs a fortune to develop new technology, perfect it, and patent it.

A Sonos spokesperson reached out to CE Pro to add some "context" to this piece:

We welcome and encourage competition. We believe genuine innovation and mutual respect for intellectual property should be the basis for healthy competition as well as partnership. But simply copying without approval or appropriate compensation is detrimental. It reduces the value of invention and, in doing so, discourages the significant investment of turning new ideas and creativity into commercial realities.

As many of our inventions have become foundational for today’s multi-room, smart, connected listening experiences, we have developed a fair and reasonable licensing program that allows companies to rightfully use our inventions and make them available to customers. In this case, Bluesound chose not to take up this offer.

Bad patents can be appealed, something far cheaper than ignoring them and hoping you won't get caught.

Good patents can usually be licenced, usually cheaper than getting caught.

If Sonos was all "dog in a manger" I'd be unhappy with them but that doesn't seem to be the situation here.

I do not like software patents issued for obvious snips of code that have not yet been published. In some cases the code should never have been patented, but an aggressive filer wrote it up and an inexperienced patent examiner thought it was unique. There are groups attempting to counter this practice by publishing as much code as possible. This code then becomes "Prior Art" and Prior Art cannot be patented. In this context a bubble sort, in my opinion, would not be patent worthy, but quick sort was an innovation.

IMO, the multi room trick isn't as valuable as it was before the advent of streaming services over the net. Prior to that, the ability to play different music in different rooms from a single NAS was very useful. Now, everyone that has a device can stream the music of their choice to a speaker in their room; many don't even have a NAS. So why does one even need multi room in the Sonos flavour?

Whether this music is streamed via the more sensible casting route that takes the phone out of the loop, or via the streaming from the device all the time route adopted by BT or Airplay.

I doubt if the big boys - Apple, Google or Amazon - are paying any fees to Sonos. If not, I also don't think that they would be doing what they already do in this space in violation of Sonos patent rights.

Wonder who’s next.... Apple?


I'm not terribly familiar with how Apple's version of multiroom works, but if they did copy Sonos in any way, I'd have to say no. Apple holds way too much leverage over Sonos because of all the other products and services they offer. Apple can change their OS so that Sonos doesn't run as well (which they already do). They can remove Apple music and airplay from Sonos. They can essential turn Apple fans away from Sonos. Amazon and Google are the same in this regards

IMO, this is a big anti-trust issue. While these tech giants may not have a pure monopoly in any one line of business, the fact that they play in dozens of markets allows them to bully smaller companies to get what they want and control the market. It stifles competition, hurts smaller companies, and ultimately hurts the consumer. I really hope that government (the US government at least) takes a look at this soon and possible puts in laws that prevents a corporation from holding this kind of leverage.

IMO, the multi room trick isn't as valuable as it was before the advent of streaming services over the net. Prior to that, the ability to play different music in different rooms from a single NAS was very useful. Now, everyone that has a device can stream the music of their choice to a speaker in their room; many don't even have a NAS. So why does one even need multi room in the Sonos flavour?

The source of audio content is not the same thing as being able to play a single stream or various streams in multiple rooms. I'm sure there are many who bought into Sonos for the ability to play from a NAS with no concern for multiroom capabilities, but certainly not anywhere near all.

I doubt if the big boys - Apple, Google or Amazon - are paying any fees to Sonos. If not, I also don't think that they would be doing what they already do in this space in violation of Sonos patent rights.

It's entirely possible that the flavor of multiroom these companies do bypass the Sonos patents. I'm mostly familiar with Amazon, and it's limited in flexibility certainly does make you think it's done in an entirely different way. It's also possible, as I stated before, that Sonos doesn't want to sue them for fear of how these companies could retaliate. Sonos needs to keep these relationships strong and have access to the services they provide.

It's also rumored than Sonos made a deal with Google when negotiating the contract for Google Assistant integration. Sonos agreed to let patent violations slide if Google agreed to do the integration, which the originally had little interest in. Perhaps Sonos had some level of leverage from an avoiding bad PR situation, but certainly not much.

I'm not terribly familiar with how Apple's version of multiroom works, but if they did copy Sonos in any way, I'd have to say no. Apple holds way too much leverage over Sonos because of all the other products and services they offer.

I don't know if this is true. Sonos (reportedly) used the threat of patent infringement litigation to reach an agreement with Google re assistant + Sonos integration. They may have already done the same with apple (first to get apple music, airplay 2etc). Smart play by Sonos with Google for sure.