Uber and Waymo put brakes on IP trial
Uber Technologies has settled its trade secrets dispute with competitor Waymo for $245 million, with the jury trial ending before the fifth day of testimony began.
The US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, dismissed the matter on Thursday, February 8, at the request of the parties.
In a lawsuit filed in February 2017 Waymo, the self-driving vehicle unit of Google’s parent company Alphabet, claimed a former engineer took thousands of Waymo’s confidential documents to his new role as chief of Uber’s self-driving car project, WIPR reported.
Waymo also said Uber had infringed three patents relating to its LiDAR technology: US numbers 8,836,922; 9,368,936; and 9,086,273. Waymo dropped all but one the patent claims in May 2017.
LiDar sensors, featured on self-driving vehicles, use laser beams to determine the position and proximity of objects, including people and other vehicles.
Waymo sought damages as well as injunctive relief, a remedy that could have cost Uber more than $1 billion and put the brakes on the continuation of its self-driving car project.
Uber denied being in receipt of Waymo’s trade secrets or infringing its LiDAR technology.
The jury trial began last week, following Waymo’s successful request to delay the lawsuit in October 2017 due to a “mountain of new evidence”. The details of the eight trade secrets Uber was accused of using have not been made public.
As well as the $245 million payment to Waymo, which represents 0.34% of Uber’s equity, the settlement agreement allows for Waymo to monitor Uber’s autonomous vehicle development via a third party to make sure Waymo’s proprietary technology is not being used by Uber, according to the Financial Times.
Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, released a statement regarding his company’s “acknowledging and correcting mistakes of the past”.
The prospect that Waymo employees “may have potentially left with Google files in their possession” had “raised some hard questions”, he added.
However, despite the settlement, Khosrowshahi said: “We do not believe that any trade secrets made their way from Waymo to Uber, nor do we believe that Uber has used any of Waymo’s proprietary information in its self-driving technology.”
A Waymo spokesperson said the agreement reached "will protect Waymo's intellectual property now and into the future".
"We have always believed competition should be fueled by innovation in the labs and on the roads and we look forward to bringing fully self-driving cars to the world,” they continued.
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