shutterstock_575131204_kenary820
21 August 2020

Google and Uber’s trade secrets collision: a cautionary tale for IP owners

Once upon a time, engineer  Anthony Levandowski was a valuable employee who played an instrumental role in the development of self-driving technology company, Waymo, a subsidiary of  Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

This changed in 2016, when he veered off course and began his destination towards federal prison. He resigned without notice, but not before downloading approximately 14,000 files to a personal device, giving him unfettered access to development schedules, product designs and other confidential information.

Levandowski then set up his own self-driving vehicle startup, Ottomotto. Subsequently, when Uber acquired Levandowski’s company for just short of $700 million, Waymo promptly sued Uber for use of its trade secrets.

A conclusion

In February 2018,  Waymo secured roughly $245 million by way of settlement at the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

In August 2019, David Anderson, attorney for the US District Court for the Northern District of California, proceeded to file a criminal complaint against Levandowski. A year later, in the same court, Judge William Alsup  sentenced Levandowski to 18 months imprisonment, plus financial penalties.

Trade secrets are often considered to be a US phenomenon, but the reality is different. The UK has always protected trade secrets according to its laws on confidential information. This protection has developed through both equitable principles and the evolution of common law.

In the UK, the equitable principle is premised on the following: when information is exchanged that is expressed as “secret”, or which should be understood to be secret, equity will act on the conscience of the recipient to prevent them from disclosing or using the information without authorisation.

This is embodied in Coco v AN Clark (Engineers) (1968), which introduced three requirements for confidentiality:

Already registered?

Login to your account

To request a FREE 2-week trial subscription, please signup.
NOTE - this can take up to 48hrs to be approved.

Two Weeks Free Trial

For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription that we can add you to for FREE, please email Adrian Tapping at atapping@newtonmedia.co.uk


More on this story

article
7 September 2020   Robert Yoches and Michelle Rice of Finnegan explore some of the recent requirements laid down by US courts.
article
3 September 2020   US education provider Kaplan has settled its trade secret theft suit against competitor Dalton Education, following the sacking of certain employees.
article
16 June 2021   Former Uber security manager Richard Jacobs has settled an on-going defamation suit with several other of the company’s employees that he had accused of stealing competitor trade secrets.