I hope you haven't invested in too much popcorn for the Waymo and Uber Saga. They settled with a $244 Million dollar payout to Waymo. Would have been interesting to see the whole thing play out. Though, I guess it's not terribly surprising, considering how many times I've gotten Jury summons just to be told that I won't be needed. Horror of horrors, I actually had to drive to the courthouse once, before the parties settled.
Details at Wired, Reuters, TheVerge and The New York Times.
Related Stories
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: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 10 2018, @04:18PM (1 child)
Discuss this https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/02/09/1811245&threshold=-1&highlightthresh=-1&commentsort=0&mode=threadtos&page=1&noupdate=1#comment_636024 [soylentnews.org]
GRSecurity vs Bruce Perens.
Not this slide bullshit.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 10 2018, @04:20PM
You're a failure in every way imaginable.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday February 10 2018, @06:41PM (2 children)
So the whole catfight gets settled with Google chump change in the form of junk stock, and Uber insisting they did nothing wrong and promising not to do it again. Amiright?
I see this as neither side being able to prove its case, and something of a death knell for NDAs imposed on former employees.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday February 10 2018, @06:51PM (1 child)
For not being able to prove its case, a quarter billion (with no further years of legal wrangling) isn't too bad for Google. It's about 9% of what they were looking for [soylentnews.org] before their case started to weaken, or 13% after another claim was thrown out [soylentnews.org].
They get some pocket change, which will presumably be put into Waymo directly. Waymo will attempt to launch driverless ride-hailing against a weakened Uber (2017 was a bad year for the company).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday February 10 2018, @07:45PM
In stock. And can't be sold soon enough to be useful.
Getting this stock actually hurt alphabet stock, (although it rebounded).
Uber stock jumped, because the death grip was suddenly loosened. (Don't expect it to last, they are in trouble everywhere they do business).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Grishnakh on Saturday February 10 2018, @08:24PM
I'm not normally a fan of lawyers, but I was really hoping to see the lawyers get really, really, really rich off this case.