Judge orders Uber to return Waymo files
Uber must return files to Waymo, formerly Google’s self-driving car division, a US judge has ordered.
The ruling by District Judge William Alsup, unsealed yesterday, said that Waymo had supplied a “compelling record” that a former executive had “pilfered over 14,000 files from Waymo”.
Alsup added that Uber knew, or should have known, as much when it brought the executive onboard and that some information from those files, if not the files themselves, had “seeped into” Uber’s own efforts to develop LiDAR (a laser-based scanning and mapping technology).
As part of the ruling, Alsup issued an injunction against Uber requiring the company to return all of the materials downloaded by the executive to Waymo by May 31.
Uber has also been ordered to keep the executive away from any role or responsibility related to LiDAR and to conduct an investigation into the downloaded documents.
In the ruling, at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, Alsup explained that although the trade secrets case warranted provisional relief, Waymo’s patent infringement argument did not.
The self-driving car company alleged that Uber had infringed US patent numbers 8,836,922; 9,368,936; 9,285,464; and 9,086,273, all of which concern LiDAR technology.
On Thursday, May 11, Alsup called for the US attorney to investigate the alleged theft of Waymo’s self-driving car technology.
A spokesperson for Waymo said: “Competition should be fuelled by innovation in the labs and on the roads, not through unlawful actions.”
They added that Waymo welcomed the injunction and that the court has granted the company expedited discovery.
A spokesperson for Uber said: "We are pleased with the court's ruling that Uber can continue building and utilising all of its self-driving technology, including our innovation around LiDAR.”
The spokesperson added that Uber is looking forward to moving toward trial and continuing to demonstrate that its technology has been “built independently from the ground up”.
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