US Patent Issued to Sonos on Oct. 27 for "Networked microphone devices, systems, and methods of localized arbitration" (Washington, Massachusetts Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 27 -- United States Patent no. 12,776,306, issued on Oct. 27, was assigned to Sonos Inc. (Goleta, Calif.).

"Networked microphone devices, systems, and methods of localized arbitration" was invented by John Tolomei (Renton, Wash.) and Klaus Hartung (Boston).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A first playback device is configured to perform functions comprising: detecting sound, identifying a wake word based on the sound as detected by the first device, receiving an indication that a second playback device has also detected the sound and identified the wake word based on the sound as detected by the second device, after receiving the indication, evaluating which of the first an...