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DENON
Sonos co-founder Craig Shelburne advised via a blog post that his company was suing Denon’s parent company D&M Holdings as it believes HEOS is “merely copying Sonos’s system”.
“Beginning with its product name and messaging (which in some instances they have just copied word for word), Denon borrows liberally from virtually all aspects of the Sonos story”, Shelbourne alleges.
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He said that the “manufacture, distribution, and/or sale of the HEOS system infringe a number of Sonos patents related to wireless audio products” but didn’t elaborate on what these were in the blog. However, you can read the full 20-page complaint here.
Denon has three speakers– the HEOS3 ($300 USD), HEOS5 ($400), HEOS7 ($600)–and an amp and pre-amp which Sonos says corresponds with its own Play:1, Play:3, Play:5, Connect and Connect:Amp.
Of course, Denon is only one of several companies including Samsung and Polk that have followed this format and it’s unclear if there will be further law suits to come.
As What HiFi points out, the two systems may have their similarities but they feature fundamentally different wireless technologies: Sonos uses a proprietary mesh network while Denon runs on regular Wi-Fi.
When contacted for comment, Denon said it was “poring over the documents” and was unable to comment. Meanwhile Sonos didn’t immediately respond to requests for further comment.
Via What HiFi