Due to the fact that Google did not infringe upon any of Sonos' multi-room audio patents, a federal judge in California has overturned a jury's decision to fine the tech giant Google a hefty $32.5 million.

According to Engadget, Google has successfully navigated through a legal maze and persuaded a federal judge in California that it did not infringe on Sonos' patents related to multi-room audio technology. The case was brought before the judge by Sonos, as Breitbart News reported.

Following an in-depth analysis of the patent applications and technological advancements made by both of the aforementioned IT businesses, the judgment was reached.

The Suit

In the lawsuit that was filed against Google in early 2020, Sonos accused the company of infringing upon five of its speaker patents.

Patrick Spence, the chief executive officer of the audio technology business, had earlier said that Google was "blatantly and knowingly" duplicating Sonos's technology and that the corporation has been uncooperative in trying to find a "mutually beneficial solution."

The original judgment handed down by a federal jury in California appeared to vindicate Sonos's claims and ordered Google to pay a total of $32.5 million in fines.

The judge in charge of the case in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, William Alsup.

However, the judge analyzed the timetable as well as the particular of the patent applications and technology implementations made by both firms.

Although Sonos had tied its patents to a provisional application that had been submitted in 2006.

The Judge's Ruling

The judge emphasized that the business did not submit applications for the patents that were at issue until 2019. Additionally, the company did not implement the technology into its goods until the year 2020.

Notably, this occurred after Google had, in 2014, proposed a concept to Sonos to leverage multi-room audio technology while exploring potential partnerships. Sonos had expressed interest in hearing more about this.

Judge Alsup stated, “This was not a case of an inventor leading the industry to something new.”

He further noted, “This was a case of the industry-leading with something new and, only then, an inventor coming out of the woodwork to say that he had come up with the idea first — wringing fresh claims to read on a competitor’s products from an ancient application.”

Google has long been suspected of wrongdoing, particularly in the way they have a functional monopoly on internet searches and censor out politically conservative ideas from their search results.