Skip to main content

Apple’s Beats and Bose settle lawsuit over noise-cancelling headphone patent

Apple’s Beats Electronics and Bose have settled a lawsuit over noise-cancelling headphone technology and asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to end its investigation into the matter. Bloomberg reports:

Bose and Beats in joint filings told a U.S. court in Delaware they’ve settled their claims, and asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to terminate its investigation…

Bose originally sued Beats Electronics in July not long after Apple announced its $3 billion deal to acquire the headphone maker. Bose was attempting to get officials to block sales of Beats Studio and Beats Studio Wireless headphones claiming Beats violated its patents related to noise-cancelling technology. 

Earlier today a report claimed that Apple was preparing to remove Bose products from its retails stores, which it currently both sells and uses for product demos alongside its iOS and Mac products. A reason behind that reported decision wasn’t given, but speculation lead to Apple’s run-ins with Bose in recent months including the lawsuit with Beats that the companies have now settled.

In addition to the lawsuit, there has also been controversy over NFL players being fined for endorsing Beats by Dre headphones after the league signed an exclusivity deal with Bose. We’ve reached out to both Apple and Bose and we’ll update if we hear back. 

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

  1. drhalftone - 9 years ago

    Boy, doesn’t this make all those, “BOSE picked the wrong patent fight,” commenters in the previous article look silly!

    • samuelsnay - 9 years ago

      So you’re privy to the details of the settlement? Please share!

    • drhalftone - 9 years ago

      In Apple’s filing with the FTC when they originally applied to purchase Beats, they referred to Beats head phones forming a core product line. Apple’s other core products line being the products listed in the tab bar of their web page (Mac/iPhone/Watch/iPad/iPod/iTunes). I suspect Apple won’t add Beats in the tab list in order to try to maintain Beats image is a separate company. Depending on who you ask, Beats is the number one selling head phones by market share with 61%, Bose #2 with 22%, and all others combined making up 17%.

      Now as an Apple fan like me, you know that Apple routinely swallow’s up other company’s market share by duplicating their software products (Dashboard versus Konfabulator)? As Steve Jobs put it, Apple has every right to compete even with its retail partners (in response to a question regarding Apple’s retail stores competing and putting out of business its retail partners, big and small)

      Put simply, Bose has been Beats target from day one. You would be an idiot to think Apple would change Beats market strategy just because they were retail partners with Bose before the purchase. When has Apple ever conceded market share to a competitor, let alone sold the competitor’s product along side their own CORE product? It was Apple’s plans to drop Bose the day it purchased Beats, it just took a while (i.e. FTC approval maybe) to drop the hammer. To think that they dropped them in retaliation for a patent lawsuit is absurd. To think it was because of the NFL, its really absurd. If it was, Apple would have completely pulled the plug on Samsung for iPhone processors, and we see now that TSMC was a stop gap supplier while Samsung struggled with the 20 nm production.

      For the record, if I were Tim Cook, would have pulled the plug on Samsung manufacturing for Intel. I would have outbid directTV for the rights to broadcast NFL Ticket over Apple TV. And I would have purchased both Beats and Bose, using the styling of Beats with the electronics of Bose.

  2. johnbroussard - 9 years ago

    Do you think this had anything to do with Apple threatening to remove Bose headphones from its stores?

  3. johnbroussard - 9 years ago

    It seems that Bose might have settled quickly so that they don’t get kicked out of Alple stores. I bet the settlement doesn’t hurt Beats/Apple that much.

  4. What they give with one hand they take away with another… ;) Bose may well of had a bit of money coming there way from the patent, but the sales from apple, at a guess would far outweigh what they would of got…!!! Short sighted in my mind…

  5. Great. Just in time for this new spat.

  6. Torrey Huerta - 9 years ago

    Sounds good to me. This frees up the Apple lawyers to concentrate on this GT Advanced Technologies sapphire trouble.

  7. Azar Aftimos - 9 years ago

    About time

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.