[encryptluks2]

This is ridiculous. Pretty soon you don't be able to stream to a Raspberry Pi connected to a speaker without violating a patent. Their failure to even state what the patent is leads me to believe it is something basic like this which means I will never buy a Sonos product.

[beervirus]

> Their failure to even state what the patent is

Yes, TechCrunch is garbage.

[NoPicklez]

I have to disagree with you. Sonos was founded by a couple of ex-JBL employees who created one of, if not the best consumer wireless stereo & home theater systems over the years.

Their business model is not to release brand new products each year, but to release improvements through software to existing hardware. One of those software features was TruePlay which existing users of Sonos were able to have free of charge. This was part of the patent that Google was copying.

I hear a lot of people complaining when large companies such as Google or Apple gobble up smaller companies or use their market power to drown out competitors. This is one of those scenarios, but through blatant patent copying.

I am always in favour of large companies being caught copying technology developed by smaller players in the market, which clearly produce quality products. Also, of course those part of the legal investigation know what the patent is.

[encryptluks2]

The issue here is that people will file a patent for anything, and when it comes to technology companies are abusing the patent process to mean something that would normally be repeated by anyone developing a product or simply by trial and error independently. It is like saying... I first figured out how to turn milk into butter so if you want to turn milk into butter and sell it you now have to pay me, even though you figured out how to do it on your own. It is ridiculous and people that defend this type of patent legislation have no clue how much it is affecting innovation within the US.

[NoPicklez]

Agreed, however there's clearly a balance here between something like turning milk into butter and patenting the maglev train. If you develop a sophisticated way that is unmatched by your competitors in which wireless speakers can transmit radio signals carrying audio. In a way that has little interruption across weak WiFi signals throughout a home and that's purely your business and innovation platform. Then I see no problem in it.

Heck Apple have a patent for a paper bag... my point is that its not necessarily about patenting turning milk into butter, but if you find a way to do it better than anyone has and you are a business that has put all of your R&D into perfecting that process in a market of other butter makers, then its fine. If they want your invention they can pay for it.

[lrem]

> Pretty soon you don't be able to stream to a Raspberry Pi connected to a speaker without violating a patent.

I think you must have blinked. For a couple decades.

[dmoy]

> you don't be able to stream to a Raspberry Pi connected to a speaker without violating a patent

Nobody is gonna send you a c&d for personal use

[praptak]

> Nobody is gonna send you a c&d for personal use

Practically, no. Theoretically they could. I believe there's no "personal use" exemption on patents under most law systems (there was one in UK maybe?).

[jrockway]

I think the "personal use" exemption is twofold: nobody will know you're doing it, and if they find out, you don't have any money. Companies sue Google because they are LOADED with cash, which they want. Your lifetime value rounds down to zero at that scale.

[monocasa]

Will they kill an open source project?

[TrueDuality]

In general yes, companies have no qualms about killing open source projects when they get a whiff of patent infringement. AFAIK Sonos hasn't done that to any projects as of today but that doesn't mean they wouldn't.

[squarefoot]

They sure are on par with Google in caring not that much about their users.

https://www.classaction.org/news/sonos-docked-with-class-act...