This will be an interesting story, I’m interested to see how Google customers respond.
A product they bought has just been downgraded and functionality removed. i.e. they no longer have what they paid for. In the EU they should be able to return the product and get a refund if they wish, but not elsewhere.
It appears Sonos was expecting money if they won, not the removal of features. And since “the preliminary ruling in August approved alternative product designs that work around the patents” they may not get the payoff they wanted. Which means Google may be in a better position to negotiate the use of Sonos technology.
This strategy worked in Spain. When faced with paying publishers for using snippets in Google News they pulled out of the country and Spanish publishers lost around 20% of their traffic. Now seven years later Google is getting a better deal with those same publishers.