Alphabet (Google) has returned fire against Sonos (3:20-cv-03845), accusing the company in a new Northern District of California case of infringing five patents through the provision of the “Sonos One, One SL, Play:1, Play:3, Play:5, Playbar, Playbase, Beam, Move, Connect:Amp, Amp, Connect, Port, and Sub products”. In January of this year, Sonos sued Google in the Central District of California and before the International Trade Commission (ITC), asserting five patents of its own in complaints targeting various products that support multi-room audio, including Chromecast, Google Home, and Nest hardware; Google apps related to media and home automation; and Google devices preinstalled with those apps.

NPEs accounted for roughly 56% of the defendants added to patent cases in the fourth quarter of 2019 (with just over 500 defendants added), while operating companies added approximately 44% (just over 400). This breakdown extends to four the number of quarters in which NPEs added more defendants than operating company plaintiffs. To see how the numbers added up for the year as a whole, see RPX’s latest blog post. Nevertheless, the first few days of 2020 have seen a trio of significant new operating company disputes.