Sonos Wins Ruling on One Patent in Google Case Over Smart Audio

Google LLC’s “Cast-enabled apps"—including Google Home, Google Play Music, and YouTube Music—infringe a Sonos Inc. patent for controlling audio speakers in several rooms at once, a California federal judge ruled, resolving one facet of last week’s “patent showdown” over competing summary judgment bids in the four-patent dispute.

Google’s noninfringement arguments, about a hotly disputed limitation within the patent’s first claim, “fail to present triable questions and lack merit,” Judge William Alsup wrote in an opinion issued Thursday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

He granted Sonos’ request that the Alphabet Inc. unit’s products infringe the ...