Waymo adds patent claim and asks for injunction against Uber

Google’s former self-driving car division Waymo has added a new patent claim to its infringement lawsuit against Uber and pushed for an injunction.

Uber, and its self-driving truck company Otto, are accused of misappropriating and infringing Waymo’s LiDAR, a laser-based scanning and mapping technology.

In February, WIPR  reported that Waymo claimed that a former manager, who is now at Uber, had downloaded more than 14,000 highly confidential and proprietary files shortly before resigning.

The claim said that this “calculated theft” of trade secrets netted Otto employees “over half a billion dollars” and allowed Uber to “revive a stalled programme, all at Waymo’s expense”.

In the original suit, Waymo also claimed that Uber infringed its patents concerning its LiDAR technology: US numbers 8,836,922; 9,368,936; and 9,086,273.

The lawsuit was filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division.

On Friday, March 10, Waymo updated its complaint, adding another patent into the mix.

The self-driving car company alleged that Uber and Otto had also infringed US patent number 9,285,464, called “Devices and methods for a rotating LIDAR platform with a shared transmit/receive path”.

Waymo also asked for a preliminary injunction to stop Uber and Otto using the alleged trade secrets and infringing its patents.

“Further, Waymo requests that defendants be compelled to return any and all Waymo confidential information in their possession or control,” said the request.

In 2016, Google’s self-driving car programme became Waymo, a stand-alone company operating alongside Google.

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