This article doesn't even say what the patents are. Useless.
> Plaintiff Sonos, Inc. (“Sonos” or “Plaintiff”) hereby asserts the following claims for patent infringement of United States Patent Nos. 8,588,949, 9,195,258, 9,219,959, 10,209,953, and 10,439,896 (“patents-in-suit”; attached hereto as Exhibits 1-5 respectively) against Defendant Google LLC (“Google” or “Defendant”)
> The innovations captured by these patents cover many important aspects of wireless multi-room audio devices/systems, including, for example, how to set up a playback device on a wireless local area network, how to manage and control groups of playback devices (e.g., how to adjust group volume of playback devices and how to pair playback devices together for stereo sound), and how to synchronize the play back of audio within groups of playback devices.
[1]https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.76...
Here are direct links for the curious:
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US8588949B2
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US9195258B2
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US9219959B2
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US10209953B2
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US10439896B2
(Edit: Formatting)
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US8588949B2
The ability to add separate speakers to groups, and control their volume via a single master volume control.
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US9195258B2
Covers two speakers synchronising playback by exchanging timing information between themselves. This one is not very clearly written.
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US9219959B2
A playback device that receives audio from the network and then equalises and plays it back, with two different equalisation settings. (This is for stereo output with two smart speakers.)
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US10209953B2
This is just a better worded and more specific version of the second patent. It describes how you would use timing information to synchronise playback. It's nothing clever - just the very obvious solution of using pings to measure the clock differences between the devices and then delaying the audio appropriately.
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US10439896B2
This is a description of the standard way of setting up smart devices - they announce their presence, you connect to them directly, send the wifi details, and then they indicate they have connected. I bet they wish they had just written "device" instead of "playback device" in this patent because then literally every smart device in the world would be violating it!
I was at least expecting some sophisticated synchronisation or room measurement stuff. But no, just 5 obvious patents that should never have been granted.