A somewhat new interpretations of the doctrine of prosecution laches emerging from Sonos, Inc. v. Google, LLC in late 2023, however, that threatened an outright repudiation of the practice late into a patent’s 20-year term. More problematically was the use of long pending and unpublished applications to coerce royalties from parties that often independently developed their own products, unaware of pending patent applications for related technologies. Key was that the record only substantiated that Google developed their allegedly infringing products after the publication of Sonos’s patent specification. As such, there was “no evidence that [Google] suffered prejudice attributable to Sonos’s delay in claiming, but not disclosing,” the invention at issue. Until CAFC speaks to the issue more directly, prosecution laches may become yet another consideration when planning and evaluating patent portfolios.