Judge seeks criminal probe in Waymo v Uber clash
The US judge overhearing a trade secrets and patent infringement clash between Waymo, formerly Google’s self-driving car division, and Uber has referred the suit to federal prosecutors.
In an order signed yesterday, District Judge William Alsup called for the US attorney to investigate the alleged theft of Waymo’s self-driving car technology.
Waymo had accused a former manager, who is now at Uber, of downloading more than 14,000 highly confidential and proprietary files shortly before resigning.
The self-driving car company, in a lawsuit filed in February at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, claimed that these files contained Waymo’s LiDAR (a laser-based scanning and mapping technology) circuit board designs.
According to Waymo, the “calculated theft” netted employees of Otto, Uber’s self-driving truck company, “over half a billion dollars” and allowed Uber to “revive a stalled programme, all at Waymo’s expense”.
Uber also allegedly infringed Waymo’s patents, US numbers 8,836,922; 9,368,936; 9,285,464; and 9,086,273, all of which concern LiDAR technology.
In March, Waymo pushed for a preliminary injunction to stop Uber and Otto from using the trade secrets and infringing its patents.
Uber hit back against the request in April, calling it a “misfire” and claiming that a search of Uber’s computers had “not yielded any of the 14,000 files Waymo alleges that Uber misappropriated”.
Yesterday, Alsup also granted an injunction against Uber. The document is sealed so it’s unclear to what extent Uber will be affected.
Uber’s attempt to take the case into arbitration was denied by the judge.
A spokesperson for Uber said: “We remain confident in our case and welcome the chance to talk about our independently developed technology in any forum."
The spokesperson added that because the preliminary injunction order is under seal, they can't speculate about what it says.
"The judge denied the motion in part so the result may just be the status quo. We will comment when it becomes public," they added.
Join us for a FREE webinar - The Halo effect: walking the wilfulness tightrope - on May 16
Today’s top stories
Weight Watchers takes on UK couple over app
Patent owner comments can narrow scope of patents, says Federal Circuit
US patent litigation continues to decline, says PwC
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox
