Uber has been accused of stealing trade secrets from Google's self-driving car division Waymo. Now, Uber may face an injunction forcing it to immediately halt its testing of driverless cars in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Arizona:
Two giants in self-driving car technology will face each other in court on Wednesday. Ride-sharing firm Uber is accused of stealing trade secrets from Waymo - the company spun out from Google's self-driving division.
[...] Both sides will make their case to a judge in San Francisco on Wednesday morning in a bitter dispute that has become the talking point of Silicon Valley. A judge will consider granting a preliminary injunction that would force Uber to immediately suspend use of the technology while legal proceedings were continuing. In an increasingly angry battle, Waymo has accused Uber of being engaged in a "cover-up".
Alsup is not expected to rule immediately on Wednesday, but he may intimate which way he is leaning. At a hearing last month, Alsup warned Uber that it may face an injunction, saying of the evidence amassed by Waymo: "I've never seen a record this strong in 42 years."
Update: The judge in the case has said that he has not seen a "smoking gun" indicating that Uber knew that Anthony Levandowski possessed Waymo trade secrets.
Related Stories
Lyft and Waymo have signed a deal to bring autonomous cars into mainstream use:
As the race to bring self-driving vehicles to the public intensifies, two of Silicon Valley's most prominent players are teaming up. Waymo, the self-driving car unit that operates under Google's parent company, has signed a deal with the ride-hailing start-up Lyft, according to two people familiar with the agreement who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The deal calls for the companies to work together to bring autonomous vehicle technology into the mainstream through pilot projects and product development efforts, these people said.
[...] The deal between Waymo and Lyft has competitive implications for Uber, the world's biggest ride-hailing company, which has recently had to confront a spate of workplace and legal problems. Lyft is a distant No. 2 to Uber among ride-hailing services in the United States, and the two companies are bitter rivals. Waymo is also competing fiercely with Uber in the creation of technology for autonomous cars and is embroiled in a lawsuit over what it says is Uber's use of stolen Waymo trade secrets to develop such technology.
Details about the deal between Waymo and Lyft were scant. The companies declined to comment on what types of products would be brought to market as a result of it or when the public might see the fruits of the collaboration.
Also at The Verge.
Previously: Uber and Lyft: Settlements, Racism, and Auto Partnerships
Google Waymo Vehicles to Hit the Road This Month
GM and Lyft to Test Thousands of Self-Driving Electric Cars in 2018
Google Spin-Off Waymo Accuses Uber of Stealing Self-Driving Tech
Lyft Pays $27M to Settle Driver Classification Suit
Uber Tracked Lyft Drivers
Uber Engineer Must Reveal Reason for Pleading the Fifth to Judge
Uber Could Face Injunction Stopping It From Testing Driverless Cars
Google's Waymo is dropping most of its patent claims against Uber, narrowing the case's focus to one patent and the many trade secrets allegedly stolen:
Waymo, Alphabet Inc.'s self-driving car division, dropped three of four patent-infringement claims in its lawsuit against Uber Technologies Inc. over the startup's autonomous vehicle program.
Waymo's decision to include patent claims in its complaint against Uber was a surprise move for Google parent Alphabet, which normally prides itself on limiting patent fights. The bulk of Waymo's case is not over patents, but trade secrets.
Waymo alleges that Uber stole trade secrets from Waymo when Anthony Levandowski, who worked for Waymo, downloaded 14,000 files to his personal computer and then joined Uber to lead the startup's driverless car program. Uber fired Levandowski in late May. The executive has invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination and has refused to testify in the case, hindering Uber's ability to defend itself against Waymo's claims.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco has asked Waymo to narrow its more than 100 trade secrets claims to fewer than 10 to put in front of a jury. In a June 7 hearing, he also said, "I want to reiterate to the plaintiff here that you should think a lot about just dropping the patent part of this case."
Also at Business Insider and Recode. Vanity Fair reports on a legal filing in the case that includes emails sent by Uber's former CEO Travis Kalanick. They depict him desperately seeking a partnership with Google and reacting to talk about Google launching an autonomous ride-hailing service.
Previously:
Google Spin-Off Waymo Accuses Uber of Stealing Self-Driving Tech
Uber Could Face Injunction Stopping It From Testing Driverless Cars
Lyft and Waymo (Google) Team Up for Autonomous Cars
Uber Fires Former Google Engineer Anthony Levandowski
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04 2017, @02:33PM (7 children)
Uber will just ignore the injunction anyway, it has worked for them so far right?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 04 2017, @02:58PM (1 child)
It's not criminal! It's a business model!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 04 2017, @04:45PM
Is this so-called judge of Mexican descent? He's BAD, folks, using excessive regulations to hunt a poor unicorn that brings precious jobs to Good Americans...
Oh, wait, the Google guy is named Sergei? Uber is a terrible failing company who harasses women instead of grabbing them outright!
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday May 04 2017, @03:15PM (4 children)
I'd love to see them try. Uber seems to be a complete shithole company with flagrant disregard for the law. Perhaps they need to be reminded that we live in one of those “violently imposed monopolies.”
I'm actually surprised that the powers that be have changed tactics here. They seemed to be going full-blown misogynerd narrative. That is, Uber continues to flout the law, continues to sexually harass their female employees, continues to be a menace to anybody who happens to be female and wants to learn programming, but we get more and more front page stories about how awful all those assigned males are in tech and how it's their fault, collectively and severally, that Malibu Stacy dolls outsell Lisa Lionheart dolls.
Of course the funny thing about Malibu Stacy is that in actual reality the creator of Barbie was a womyn-born-womyn who knew damned well what she was doing creating a doll to sexually objectify women's bodies as an unattainable caricature of the female form in the minds of girls too young to understand how they were being fucked with and brainwashed by pervasive misogyny.
If Uber actually gets taken down for their continued bad faith acts, it would become harder for feminists to continue to say that all assigned males in tech are poisonous M&Ms (not to be confused with giftpilze and poisonous Skittles, which are totally different from poisonous M&Ms).
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 04 2017, @05:10PM (3 children)
OK, I was with you until the second paragraph, then you lost me. Not sure what Uber flouting the law has to do with feminism.
Not every tech story is about keeping women out of programming,
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday May 04 2017, @09:08PM (2 children)
OK, I was with you until the second paragraph, then you lost me. Not sure what Uber flouting the law has to do with feminism.
Not every tech story is about keeping women out of programming,
Kurenai's been traumatized by the Michigan RadFems, so everything leads her to the 'how "womyn-born-womyn" and the misogynerds are keeping her down.' narrative.
That's not to say there aren't misogynerd jerks [inc.com] who harass women [wired.com], and those RadFems can be pretty out there [wordpress.com] too.
But she's had a hard time. Which usually leads her to put just about everything into that context. I get it. So I generally let that stuff slide. What you do about it is, of course, up to you.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday May 04 2017, @11:16PM (1 child)
I am mostly aware of the history. I was trying remind her that not everything is an evil radfem plot. There are other actors out there.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday May 05 2017, @03:19AM
I am mostly aware of the history. I was trying remind her that not everything is an evil radfem plot. There are other actors out there.
Good luck with that, but don't hold your breath.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr