Bose Corporation
Bose Corporation (/boʊz/) is an American manufacturing company that predominantly sells audio equipment. The company was established by Amar Bose in 1964 and is based in Framingham, Massachusetts. It is best known for its home audio systems and speakers, noise cancelling headphones, professional audio products and automobile sound systems.[6][7][8] Bose has a reputation for being particularly protective of its patents, trademarks, and brands.
Company type
The majority owner of Bose Corporation is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Non-voting shares were donated to MIT by founder Amar Bose, and receive cash dividends. According to the company annual report for the 2021 financial year, Bose Corporation's annual sales were $3.2 billion, and the company employed approximately 7,000 people.[5]
Production facilities[edit]
Bose's products are manufactured in the United States, Mexico, China and Malaysia.[33][34][35] The company's factories in the United States are located in Framingham, Massachusetts (also the site of the company headquarters), Westborough, Massachusetts and Stow, Massachusetts.[36] In early 2021, Bose Corporation notified the Town of Stow of intention to vacate the 81.5 acre Stow campus after 18 years at the site, moving nearly 1500 employees to the Framingham headquarters.[37] The Bose factories in Mexico are located in Tijuana and San Luis Río Colorado. The Malaysian Bose factory is located in Batu Kawan and is also the company's distribution hub for the Asia-Pacific and Middle East.[38]
In 2015, two facilities in Columbia, South Carolina, US and Carrickmacross, Ireland, were closed (with the loss of 300 and 140 jobs respectively), as part of a "global streamlining of Bose's supply chain. Bose used the Columbia facility, which opened in 1993, for distribution and repair, sub-manufacturing and regional manufacturing, and final assembly for some headsets. The Carrickmacross factory, which began operations in 1978, did final assembly for some home theater systems, Wave radios, and other regional manufacturing.[39] The operation of the San Luis and Batu Kawan factories were taken over by contract manufacturer Flex in 2016 and continued to produce Bose products.[40]
QuietComfort 25 headphones
ProFlight aviation headset
View on published specifications[edit]
The company is known for its electing not to provide audio specifications for its products.[75][13][76] This policy dates back to 1968, when Amar Bose published a paper titled "On the Design, Measurement and Evaluation of Loudspeakers", wherein he rejected numerical test data in favor of subjective evaluation.[77][78] In a 2007 interview, Amar stated: "There are two reasons we cut out the specifications: 1- We don’t know of any measurements that actually determine anything about a product, and 2- Measurements are phony, in general, as they are printed."[79]
In some non-audio related publications, Bose has been cited as a producer of "high-end audio" products.[80] Commenting in 2007 on Bose's "high-end" market positioning among audiophiles (people concerned with the best possible sound), a PC Magazine product reviewer stated "not only is Bose equipment's sound quality not up to audiophile standards, but one could buy something that does meet these stringent requirements for the same price or, often, for less."[81] Bose has also received mixed reviews from the public. Bose has not been certified by THX for its home entertainment products[82] even though its more expensive home theater products compete at prices where THX certification is common. Some other views include:
Legal actions[edit]
Bose has been described by audio industry professionals as a litigious company.[90][91][92][93] In 1981, Bose unsuccessfully sued the magazine Consumer Reports for libel. Consumer Reports reported in a review that the sound from the system that they reviewed "tended to wander about the room." Initially, the Federal District Court found that Consumer Reports "had published the false statement with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of its truth or falsity" when it changed what the original reviewer wrote about the speakers in his pre-publication draft, that the sound tended to wander "along the wall." The Court of Appeals then reversed the trial court's ruling on liability, and the United States Supreme Court affirmed in a 6–3 vote in the case Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., finding that the statement was made without actual malice, and therefore there was no libel.[94][95][96] In an interview decades later Amar Bose said "We had 37 people at the time. I gathered them in one room and said, 'If we don't do anything, it will probably kill us. But if we do something, we have no credibility since we're just a small company and we can't do anything against this.' I said I think we oughtta do something. I wanted a vote. It was unanimous in favor of taking action. Little did we know it would take 14 years to go through the legal process."[79]
Bose sued Thiel Audio in the early 1990s to stop the audiophile loudspeaker maker from using ".2" at the end of its product model "CS2.2". To comply with Bose's trademark of ".2" associated with the Bose Model 2.2 product,[97] Thiel changed their model name to "CS2 2", substituting a space for the decimal point.[98] Bose did not trademark ".3" so in 1997 when Thiel introduced the next model in the series, they named it the "Thiel 2.3", advertising "the return of the decimal point."[99]
In 1996, Bose sued two subsidiaries of Harman International Industries—JBL and Infinity Systems—for violating a Bose patent on elliptical tuning ports on some loudspeaker products.[92] In 2000, the court determined that Harman was to cease using elliptical ports in its products, and Harman was to pay Bose $5.7 million in court costs.[92] Harman stopped using the disputed port design but appealed the financial decision. At the end of 2002, the earlier judgment was upheld but by this time Bose's court expenses had risen to $8 million, all to be paid by Harman.[97]
Bose was successful in blocking QSC Audio Products from trademarking the term "PowerWave" in connection with a certain QSC amplifier technology. In 2002, a court decided that the "Wave" trademark was worthy of greater protection because it was well-known on its own, even beyond its association with Bose.[100]
In 2003, Bose sued Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association (CEDIA), a non-profit electronics trade organization for use of the "Electronic Lifestyles" trademark,[90] which CEDIA had been using since 1997. Bose argued that the trademark interfered with its own "Lifestyle" trademark.[101] Bose had previously sued to protect its "Lifestyle" trademark beginning in 1996 with a success against Motorola and continuing with settlements against New England Stereo, Lifestyle Technologies, Optoma and AMX.[102] In May 2007, CEDIA won the lawsuit after the court determined Bose to be guilty of laches (unreasonable delays), and that Bose's assertions of fraud and likelihood of confusion were without merit.[103] CEDIA was criticized for spending nearly $1 million of its member's money on the lawsuit, and Bose was criticized for "unsportsmanlike action against its own trade association", according to Julie Jacobson of CE Pro magazine.[102]
In July 2014, Bose sued Beats Electronics for patent infringement, alleging that its "Studio" headphones line incorporated Bose noise cancelling technology.[104][105] Bose and Apple had collaborated on the SoundDock for iPod music players in 2004. Then in May 2014, Beats was bought by Apple, bringing Bose and Apple into direct competition in the headphone market. In Apple stores, Bose headphones were once the foremost brand offered, but at the time of the lawsuit, Beats products outnumbered Bose. In 2014 total premium headphone market share, Beats held 62%, Bose held 22%.[106] In October 2014, Bose dropped the lawsuit, as Bose and Beats settled out of court without revealing the terms.[107][108][109] Apple removed all Bose products from its Apple stores a few days after the lawsuit was settled,[110] but two months later, Bose products returned.[111]
In April 2017, Bose was sued alleging a privacy violation regarding the mobile phone apps delivered by Bose to control their Bluetooth headphones.[112]
