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from the money-for-nothing-and-your-chips-go-free dept.
Engineer spends $6,000 invalidating Waymo's lidar patents
An engineer with no connection to the self-driving industry has spent $6,000 of his own money to stop Alphabet's self-driving car business Waymo from patenting key technology. Following a challenge filed by Eric Swildens, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected 53 out of 56 claims in Waymo's 936 patent. The reason for his action? He just "couldn't imagine the [lidar] circuit [described in the 936 patent] didn't exist prior," Ars Technica reported.
Filed in 2013 and granted in 2016, the 936 patent was a cornerstone of Waymo's lawsuit against Uber, which began in December 2016. In a nutshell, Waymo accused the ride-hailing giant of infringing its lidar design patent and using intellectual property allegedly stolen by engineer Anthony Levandowski. Uber eventually agreed to redesign its lidar and gave Waymo $245 million worth of equity to settle the rest of the lawsuit. It also promised not to copy Waymo's technology in the future.
Uber got slammed for nothing!
Previously: A Spectator Who Threw A Wrench In The Waymo/Uber Lawsuit
Waymo and Uber Abruptly Settle for $245 Million
Related: Waymo's Case Against Uber "Shrinks" After Trade Secret Claim Thrown Out
Waymo v. Uber Jury Trial Begins
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 04 2018, @02:43PM
In the cases of tech exfiltration that I have had contact with, the perps were amazingly sloppy about leaving a clear evidence trail back to the stolen code - like, usually a massive import of code which still contains copyright and other text, then a source control repository showing how they modified from that point.
🌻🌻 [google.com]