Google loses patent case against Sonos, will remove features from Nest and Chromecast products

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This is a problem with the patent system, this is no technology, this is a function
Guessing you didn't read the patent in question. I certainly suggest you do.
Even so, google's shady dealings should not adversely affect the customers.
It's not up to the court to decide or force anyone how to react when they are found on the wrong end of the law. Google themselves chose how to handle the outcome. They had other choices and instead went with the crybaby route.
I'm not mad at Sonos, I'm mad at the system that allows this kind of 'justice' where nobody wins. Google removes the feature, customers loose, sonos doesn't get anything but a moral victory, google sails off into the sunset.
Your anger is directed entirely in the wrong direction, and with a heap of ignorance towards this patent itself, and how patent cases work.
 
Again, this is 100% on Google for 1) Stealing the technology to begin with 2) Being cheap and instead of paying up when called out, screw their customers and cheat Sonos.
 
Yep, if only we gave beaurocrats more money - that would solve everything

😂😂😂

You can't expect to do the right job if you have an insufficient amount of people and you can't pay enough to hire the good ones. You get what you pay for.

Government agencies are usually asked to do immense and highly complicated tasks with a tiny fraction of the budget it takes to do a good job, and when they inevitably fail, that is often used as an excuse to cut their budget even further, and then people act all shocked when the problem gets worse instead of better. It's insane.

The saying is just as true for Government as it is for everything else in life. You get what you pay for.
 
Guessing you didn't read the patent in question. I certainly suggest you do.

It's not up to the court to decide or force anyone how to react when they are found on the wrong end of the law. Google themselves chose how to handle the outcome. They had other choices and instead went with the crybaby route.

Your anger is directed entirely in the wrong direction, and with a heap of ignorance towards this patent itself, and how patent cases work.

I am not a patent lawyer, but if patent laws allows for patenting simple as fuck ideas that anyone could dream up in their sleep, like "oh, control the volume on all your devices from one place" or "ooh, a rectangle with rounded corners" then it is completely broken and should be thrown out and we should start from scratch.

Patents are there not to protect ideas, but to protect the development of those ideas. You know, so a company doesn't spend billions developing something only to have it stolen. Whenever simple ideas with little to no development behind them get issued a patent, the patent system does more harm than it does good, and only results in harmful patent trolling.

It is my firm belief that the USPO is catastrophically underfunded to th epoint where it cannot do its job properly. They need to have some of the top experts in every field on staff with enough competence to review submissions to see if they have merit, and they seem to be completely unable to accomplish this, seemingly just rubber stamping whatever nonsense that comes their way.
 
I am not a patent lawyer, but if patent laws allows for patenting simple as fuck ideas that anyone could dream up in their sleep, like "oh, control the volume on all your devices from one place" or "ooh, a rectangle with rounded corners" then it is completely broken and should be thrown out and we should start from scratch.

Patents are there not to protect ideas, but to protect the development of those ideas. You know, so a company doesn't spend billions developing something only to have it stolen. Whenever simple ideas with little to no development behind them get issued a patent, the patent system does more harm than it does good, and only results in harmful patent trolling.

It is my firm belief that the USPO is catastrophically underfunded to th epoint where it cannot do its job properly. They need to have some of the top experts in every field on staff with enough competence to review submissions to see if they have merit, and they seem to be completely unable to accomplish this, seemingly just rubber stamping whatever nonsense that comes their way.
Again, just go read the patent. Unless and until people do, they're just blowing smoke and it's actually kind of funny.
 
It is my firm belief that the USPO is catastrophically underfunded to th epoint where it cannot do its job properly. They need to have some of the top experts in every field on staff with enough competence to review submissions to see if they have merit, and they seem to be completely unable to accomplish this, seemingly just rubber stamping whatever nonsense that comes their way.
I challenge you to visit the USPTO's public PAIR system (look up application number 14/628952, which is the first of the asserted patents US9,967,615), and read through the image file wrapper, and then with a straight face, say this was "Rubber Stamped."
 
Again, just go read the patent. Unless and until people do, they're just blowing smoke and it's actually kind of funny.
How in the world is synchronizing volume control so complicated that it needs a patent?
The speaker groups are still there, just not synced volume control.
Google already has their own method of syncing the music itself across the speakers apparently if they still have that feature.

Synced volume control should be a basic feature, and in today's world, not patentable. Syncing just about anything between devices is so trivial nowadays.

This whole debacle would at least make sense if it was about speaker groups itself, because I can see how much work it would take to make sure that audio stays synced and not drift at all in real-time.

Volume control on the other hand, is a simple copy/paste of settings upon user interaction across the speaker group...

Its like trying to patent backup replication to another site/storage, its basically just "automated" copy/paste, I can do that myself via scripts.
Now the method you use to backup on the other hand....(custom written compression method that's better than everything else, custom deduplication method, etc).

Edit: Maybe this is Google's way of trying to keep speaker group feature as long as possible as Sonos looks to have all the patents related to speaker groups. So Google removed speaker group volume control and said "See! we're cooperating!"
 
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How in the world is synchronizing volume control so complicated that it needs a patent?
The speaker groups are still there, just not synced volume control.
Google already has their own method of syncing the music itself across the speakers apparently if they still have that feature.

Synced volume control should be a basic feature, and in today's world, not patentable. Syncing just about anything between devices is so trivial nowadays.

This whole debacle would at least make sense if it was about speaker groups itself, because I can see how much work it would take to make sure that audio stays synced and not drift at all in real-time.

Volume control on the other hand, is a simple copy/paste of settings upon user interaction across the speaker group...

Its like trying to patent backup replication to another site/storage, its basically just "automated" copy/paste, I can do that myself via scripts.
Now the method you use to backup on the other hand....(custom written compression method that's better than everything else, custom deduplication method, etc).
You can't evaluate it in "today's world." The priority patent application was filed in 2003. That's the state of the art you have to examine the patent application in. Today, sure - not patentable. in 2003, quite possibly - patentable.
 
You can't evaluate it in "today's world." The priority patent application was filed in 2003. That's the state of the art you have to examine the patent application in. Today, sure - not patentable. in 2003, quite possibly - patentable.
its a pretty weak patent though.
There are already opensource alternatives (for personal use): https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync
Probably could use HomeAssistant too. I just got started on that because of this.
 
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Sonos could seriously capitalize on this if they had their own low cost "smart speaker" that integrates with google lol
 
How in the world is synchronizing volume control so complicated that it needs a patent?
The speaker groups are still there, just not synced volume control.
Google already has their own method of syncing the music itself across the speakers apparently if they still have that feature.

Synced volume control should be a basic feature, and in today's world, not patentable. Syncing just about anything between devices is so trivial nowadays.

This whole debacle would at least make sense if it was about speaker groups itself, because I can see how much work it would take to make sure that audio stays synced and not drift at all in real-time.

Volume control on the other hand, is a simple copy/paste of settings upon user interaction across the speaker group...

Its like trying to patent backup replication to another site/storage, its basically just "automated" copy/paste, I can do that myself via scripts.
Now the method you use to backup on the other hand....(custom written compression method that's better than everything else, custom deduplication method, etc).

Edit: Maybe this is Google's way of trying to keep speaker group feature as long as possible as Sonos looks to have all the patents related to speaker groups. So Google removed speaker group volume control and said "See! we're cooperating!"
Again, go read the patent. You're grossly oversimplifying what it is and what Google is infringing on. As sc5mu93 also pointed out, this was first applied for in 2003. It was granted in the US and other countries, and just held up as viable.

its a pretty weak patent though.
There are already opensource alternatives (for personal use): https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync
Probably could use HomeAssistant too. I just got started on that because of this.
Ah, yeah. Come around 17 years later and make your own version sure does invalidate original engineering. Yikes. That would be a horrible precedent.
 
Again, go read the patent. You're grossly oversimplifying what it is and what Google is infringing on. As sc5mu93 also pointed out, this was first applied for in 2003. It was granted in the US and other countries, and just held up as viable.


Ah, yeah. Come around 17 years later and make your own version sure does invalidate original engineering. Yikes. That would be a horrible precedent.
If we're talking about VOLUME CONTROL that's because volume control is simple, its just volume control nothing complicated about it, I don't need to read a patent on volume control to understand how it works.
-Create group
-add speakers to group.
-you now have volume slider for speaker group
All that does is synchronize the individual speaker volume percentages across the devices whenever volume is modified by the user. Hardly a difficult task.
Back in 2003 the way to do this was have a "central" amplifier and run wires to each speaker.
Now we can send music to play on wireless speakers. Progress.

Now if we're talking about the "synchronized music playing" in "speaker groups" and other patents that require actual thought on the other hand, then I completely agree with you no question. As evidenced by it taking 17 years for an opensource solution.

Sonos should not have the sole ability to "synchronize volume" across devices. That's my opinion because literally any inexperienced developer (like myself) could implement a similar feature, to prevent a mindless repetitive task such as setting volume manually on every device.
It wasn't till like 10 years later when actual consumer products came out that could even simply use the feature.
How long do patents last? 20 years? If so then Sonos' "synchronized volume control" will expire and no longer be relevant anyways...
 
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