
Sonos: Working with big tech sucks - Tomte
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/8/21056198/sonos-google-statement-lawsuit-ces-reaction-big-tech
======
threesquared
> including synchronizing audio across groups of speakers, adjusting the group
> volume, and setting up devices on a local wireless network.

I'm sorry but patents like this shouldn't really be enforceable, its
completely anti-competitive.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
I guess we'll have to reserve judgment until we see Sonos' complaint, but if
the main thrust of it is that Google, Apple, and Amazon should not be able to
make internet connected speakers because Sonos got there first, then I'm not a
buyer. Sonos speakers are extremely pricey for what they are. A world in which
they are the only option is a worse one than one in which there is
competition, even if that means Sonos shareholders make less money. (FWIW, the
request for an injunction on Google selling its own speakers suggests to me
that this is the main argument, so I'm already biased against Sonos'
position.)

Of course, I am not a fan of Google or anyone attempting to force some kind of
exclusivity arrangement. That doesn't seem like something that benefits the
end-user. We'll have to see whether that is a correct representation of the
conversations that they were having.

~~~
falcolas
> because Sonos got there first

Devil's advocate: That's exactly what patents are for though. Someone had a
really good idea, built it, and someone else came along and said "that's a
really great idea, I'm going to do that too." We, as technologists, keep
asserting that ideas have value, until it's an idea we really want.

> Google, Apple, and Amazon should not be able to make internet connected
> speakers

They absolutely can, they just have to pay for the right.

~~~
GuB-42
> Devil's advocate: That's exactly what patents are for though. Someone had a
> really good idea, built it, and someone else came along and said "that's a
> really great idea, I'm going to do that too." We, as technologists, keep
> asserting that ideas have value, until it's an idea we really want.

Ideas have very little value. What is valuable is the implementation of it.
And that's what patents protect.

I'm sure that thousands, if not millions of people thought about connected
speakers. Sonos build an enclosure and a PCB, specified the protocols to be
used, designed the software that goes with it, etc... patenting the technical
innovations they spend money on developing along the way. That's what Sonos
brought to the table, not the idea of connected speakers.

If Google decided to redevelop things from scratch based on that idea, as they
claimed, they owe nothing to Sonos. Sure, they have the advantage of knowing
that it is a good idea, but Sonos got a head start, that's fair. What Sonos
complains about is that Google didn't develop their solution from scratch and
copied more than the general idea.

~~~
dllthomas
> If Google decided to redevelop things from scratch based on that idea, as
> they claimed, they owe nothing to Sonos.

That's not how patents work. If Google _had never heard of Sonos_ and
independently developed a connected speaker, and the result was too similar to
what the patent covers, then Google would owe Sonos. Less than if the
infringement were willful, but it's still infringement per the law.

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jakelazaroff
Here’s the actual complaint: [https://www.scribd.com/document/442039322/Sonos-
ITC-Complain...](https://www.scribd.com/document/442039322/Sonos-ITC-
Complaint-against-Google)

I haven’t read through the whole thing, but I did browse through one of the
allegedly infringed patents (“method and apparatus for adjusting volume levels
in a multi-zone system”) and it’s every bit as broad as you’d expect:
[https://patentswarm.com/patents/US8588949B2](https://patentswarm.com/patents/US8588949B2)

~~~
seattle_spring
Didn't Squeezebox implement that feature years before Sonos was even a thing?

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seren
Not totally unrelated, but Sonos recently bought snips.ai, a startup working
on assistant with a focus on privacy and local voice recognition (and they
also use some Rust). The move is likely motivated by Sonos not wanting to rely
on Google/Amazon

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schnable
Man, The Verge's headlines are really exhausting.

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ginko
What's with the random apostrophe in the title?

~~~
nwsm
The title of the html page has a couple extra words. Maybe Verge tried to
change the title to remove `Google lawsuit` and forgot the apostrophe.

>Sonos’ Google lawsuit says what every smaller tech company was thinking:
working with big tech sucks - The Verge

~~~
DHPersonal
It’s possessive: “Sonos’ lawsuit against Google.”

~~~
mercutio2
It’s possessive, but represents a grey zone in how apostrophes work in modern
English.

A trailing apostrophe is for a possessive following a plural “s”. But “Sonos”
is just a made up name, meant to evoke the Latin “sonus” I’d guess.
Regardless, it’s a singular name, the fact that it has a trailing “s” doesn’t
mean it’s plural.

So in this argument, a possessive should be spelled “Sonos’s”.

BUT! There’s a longstanding (but eroding) tradition that there’s a specific
exception for classical or biblical names that end in an s. Is Sonos a
classical or biblical name? I don’t think so, but I suppose people could
decide it ought to be treated like one.

Finally, recent advice on this is to let pronunciation guide the presence of a
final “s”. So if you pronounce Sonos’ as “soh-nohs” and not “soh-noh-ses”, the
APA thinks Sonos’ is reasonable [0].

[0] [https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/06/forming-
possessiv...](https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/06/forming-possessives-
with-singular-names.html)

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mcgroin-holden
And yet peole are claiming only the Chinese have IP issues...

~~~
2T1Qka0rEiPr
Do people claim this? From my limited understanding, it seems like the IP
environment is rife with problems in the US and abroad (e.g. copyright
trolls).

That said, it can be simultaneously true that there are problems in these
countries _but_ that the environment is still significantly better for
investment than in China (where - again, in my limited understanding - there's
not simply very little recourse for IP, but government backed corpra is
actively endorsing infringement)

------
lowdose
So what, nobody at tech wants to be responsible for a Docker strategy
decision.

The article still has no answer on why it is so difficult to actually get a
Sonos to play nice with the two interfaces supplied by Amazon and Google.
These are becoming industry standard functioning interfaces i.e. APIs that
every consumer can hookup with IFTTT.

~~~
GhettoMaestro
I really wish people (you) would read.

> The other thing that rings true in the NYT story is the detail that Google
> told Sonos it would pull Google Assistant support if Sonos enabled
> simultaneous wake words. That’s the feature which lets speakers listen for
> both “Alexa” and “Okay Google” at the same time. Google really comes off
> looking like a bully.

~~~
lonelappde
Please follow the HN civility guidelines.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

