Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe partner Clement Roberts.

Sonos Inc. has turned to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and Chicago's Lee Sullivan Shea & Smith for a patent infringement showdown with Google LLC and parent Alphabet Inc. The New York Times detailed the competitive conundrum the home audio company says its facing here.

Sonos alleges in Los Angeles federal court and at the International Trade Commission that it pioneered the wireless multiroom audio system in the early 2000s. But after partnering with Google Play Music, Google began marketing its own infringing systems, the company says. The infringement is "profoundly compounded by Google's business strategy to use its multi-room audio products to vacuum up invaluable consumer data from users," Sonos contends, enabling Google to sell its products as low-cost loss leaders.

The federal court case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge John Kronstadt of the Central District of California, though it will likely be put on hold pending the ITC litigation, which seeks to block Google from importing allegedly infringing products.

A few additional notes about Sonos' case and its legal team:

➤ The company successfully asserted some of the same patents in Delaware against Denon Electronics and its parent D&M Holdings. Sonos is calling on the same legal team—George Lee, Sean Sullivan, Rory Shea and J. Dan Smith of Lee Sullivan—and is pairing them with Orrick partners Clement Roberts, Jordan Coyle, Bas de Blank and Alyssa Caridis.

➤ Sonos' legal department is helmed by GC Edward Lazarus, author of the 1998 behind-the-scenes look at the Supreme Court Closed Chambers. He served as GC of Tribune Media before joining Sonos a year ago.

➤ Section 101 was a key battleground in the Delaware litigation and Google will likely try a similar attack. Sonos' 8,588,949 patent, for example, claims a controller that provides a user interface allowing for the formation and control of zone players. Denon argued the patent was directed to the abstract idea of controlling audio settings for multiple devices. But U.S. District Judge Richard Andrews of the District of Delaware said that was an oversimplification that ignored "tangible limitations that are tied to specific devices." Sonos eventually won a $2 million verdict and settled the case during posttrial motions.

➤ Sonos went public in August 2018. In its S-1 it cautioned that "we have initiated legal proceedings to protect our intellectual property rights, and we may file additional actions in the future." The company specifically highlighted its litigation with Denon. But it didn't mention that it was getting crosswise with the world's fourth-largest technology company. The federal court complaint now spells out that as early as October 2016, "Sonos put Google on notice of infringement of 28 Sonos patents," and that "later in January 2018, and then again in July 2018, Sonos put Google on notice of infringing even more Sonos patents."