Following Sonos lawsuit, Google is in hot water for Chromecast tech
Google got into a lengthy legal dispute with Sonos over its smart speakers and their audio casting capabilities, with the audio company winning a $32.5 million trial against the California behemoth. This isn’t the only trouble Google is in for its casting endeavors, though. A Texas jury has decided that the company violated patents with its Chromecast’s video streaming capabilities, and is supposed to pay $338.7 million in damages.
The news, reported by Reuters, comes just two months after the big verdict in the Sonos case. New York-based company Touchstream started the lawsuit, saying it invented the technology that allows you to move video streams from one screen to another in the way that Google implements it on its Chromecast devices.
The company shares that it met with Google in 2011 to discuss its tech, with the bigger company halting talks a few months later. In 2013, Google then introduced its first Chromecast. Touchstream says that in doing so, the company infringed on three of its patents, not just with the original Chromecast, but also with similar devices like Google Home and Nest smart displays and speakers as well as third-party TVs with casting capabilities.
In a statement to Reuters, Google makes clear that it wants to appeal the decision, saying that the patents are invalid and that it “always developed technology independently and competed on the merits of our ideas.” Touchstream has opened similar cases against other companies in the business of moving videos across displays, including Comcast, Charter, and Altice.
The original 2013 Chromecast
The news comes shortly after the first Chromecast celebrates its 10th birthday. The simple and cheap HDMI stick that came without a remote or a full-fledged user interface of its own pioneered the market for cheap streaming sticks, with some of best streaming devices like the Amazon Fire TV Stick and Roku Streaming Stick soon entering homes. The latest iterations of the Chromecast, the Chromecast with Google TV and its more affordable HD sibling, are the first in its line to come with a remote and an Android TV-based user interface, making it possible to use them without casting content via another device.
Source: Android Police
