Federal Court of Appeal echoes the Federal Court smart speaker decision
Justice Locke, writing a unanimous decision for the Federal Court of Appeal in Google LLC v Sonos Inc., 2024 FCA 44, dismissed Google LLC’s (“Google”) appeal of 2022 FC 1116, agreeing that Sonos did not infringe claim 7 of Google’s Canadian Patent No. 2,545,150 (“150 Patent”) with their smart speaker product.
The 150 Patent claims a system for adaptive echo and noise control in equipment like smart speakers. Claim 7 of the 150 Patent defines an electronic device having both an echo canceller and a noise suppressor wherein “an order of echo cancellation and noise suppression” is “adaptively determine[d]” based on “an amount of noise.” The Sonos speaker has a feature called the “Sonos Voice Pipeline” which addresses echo and noise so that it is not able to detect anything other than the user’s voice.
To be successful on appeal, Google had to convince the Federal Court of Appeal that the Federal Court erred in both its application of the term “adaptively determine” and in its construction of one or both terms “echo cancellation” and “an order” in Claim 7. In the underlying decision, the Court, relying on expert evidence, found the term “echo” is distinct from, and not simply a type of “noise,” and determined echo cancellation and noise suppression were distinct processes. Google argued that “echo cancellation” encompasses any mechanism to minimize echo, including minimizing echo by means other than what was described in the 150 Patent. Justice Locke found the reviewable error as posed was where the interpretation of a patent claim turned on the weight given to expert evidence, a situation of mixed fact and law reviewable on a palpable and overriding error standard.
Justice Locke found the Federal Court’s conclusion that noise suppression and echo cancellation are distinct processes took Google’s argument that echo cancellation encompasses activities that are noise suppression into consideration. Justice Locke explained that limiting the scope of the echo canceller defined in claim 7 would have narrowed it to the scope of claim 8 which was dependant on and narrower than claim 7. Further, Justice Locke rejected Google’s argument that the Federal Court erred in failing to recognize “an order” in the phrase “an order of echo cancellation and noise suppression” could encompass an order whether either echo cancellation or noise suppression was available but not performed. He explained “it was open to the Federal Court to favour one expert over the other” and to reach a conclusion based on which expert they favoured. Justice Locke concluded Google did not convince the Court that the Federal Court erred on at least one of the claim construction issues and dismissed the appeal.
The full decision can be read here.
