[yccs27]

The "novelty" (idk how novel it is really, but they present it as such) is not in speakers playing the same audio or L/R at the same time, but individual autonomous playback devices being grouped and ungrouped, so that they can be controlled as a unit when grouped.

[codys]

"Simple Jack panel, but computer controlled" is not novel and should not be patentable.

[yccs27]

Yeah, I'm absolutely not arguing this should be patentable. It seems like they are obvious and marginal (at best) changes to preexisting systems, even if they were the first ones to describe them. Still, the patents are not as boundlessly broad as some commenters here seem to think, for instance they clearly exclude hard-wired multispeaker systems.

[yccs27]

To those downvoting: Am I wrong here? Not defending the patents, I just want people to stop tearing down strawmen instead of the real thing.

[boondaburrah]

This sounds an awful lot like what I've been able to do with digital theatre sound systems for a long time, so I don't think it's novel.