U.S. Patent 8234395 was awarded to Sonos, Inc. on 2012-07-31 and describes a “System and method for synchronizing operations among a plurality of independently clocked digital data processing devices.” This patent has been cited 309 times by other U.S. patents which places it in the top 500 cited patents since 2010 according to our law firm research, and makes it of the most innovative digital communication patents in the field of electrical engineering. The abstract states:

A system maintains synchrony of operations among devices that have independent clocking arrangements. The system includes a task distribution device that distributes tasks to a synchrony group of devices that perform the tasks distributed by the task distribution device in synchrony. The task distribution device distributes each task to the members of the synchrony group over a network. Each task is associated with a time stamp that indicates a time, relative to a clock maintained by the task distribution device, at which the members of the synchrony group are to execute the task. Each member of the synchrony group periodically obtains an indication of the current time indicated by its clock, determines a time differential between the task distribution device’s clock and its respective clock and determines a time at which, according to its respective clock, the time stamp indicates that it is to execute the task. Link: U.S. Patent 8234395

This patent was originally filed on 2004-04-01 which gives it a processing time of 3043 days, compared to an average processing time of 2154 in the field. Sonos, Inc. has 381 total patents. The first named inventor is Nicholas Millington of Santa Barbara, CA. The primary examiner was Jeffrey Nickerson.

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