ARTICLE · 18 JUNE 2020

Look Before You Leap: Is Litigation The Best Strategy For Sonos?

Cipher

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Back in January 2020, Sonos sued Google for infringement on 5 of its patents and last week Google retaliated by suing Sonos over 5 of its patents.

United KingdomIntellectual Property

Back in January 2020, Sonos sued Google for infringement on 5 of its patents and last week Google retaliated by suing Sonos over 5 of its patents.

This is a perfect example of why patents are now ants. This is not a story about 10 patents. That's the tip of the ant hill. Sonos owns 335 patent families and Google owns 23,497. While this story has all the appeal of David vs Goliath, it is an illustration of the risks of counter-assertion and how strategic patent intelligence helps you asses that risk before pulling the trigger.

The article focuses on:

What's the end-game of patent litigation?
Is litigation part of Sonos' wider patent strategy?
How can optimisation models mitigate your exposure to third party risk?

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