US Attorney to consider corporate spying in Waymo vs Uber
A former Google engineer is accused of stealing 14,000 documents on self-driving cars and taking them with him to Uber.
Friday 12 May 2017 14:15, UK
An allegation of trade secret theft, made by Google's autonomous car unit against Uber, has been referred to the US Attorney's office.
Uber is being sued by Waymo, the business unit developing self-driving vehicles at Google's parent company Alphabet, over .
The suit accuses former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski of stealing technology when he left the company to create a start-up called Otto, which was also building self-driving cars.
Uber acquired Otto for $680m (£540m) last year, at which point Mr Levandowski began to oversee Uber's work on developing autonomous cars.
He has now stepped down from that leadership role until the suit is resolved.
Waymo's suit accused Uber of corporate espionage by using trade secrets which were recorded in 14,000 documents which it believes Mr Levandowski stole when he left the company.
These documents particularly reference a proprietary tool called Lidar which Waymo's self-driving cars use to navigate. Uber claimed its own technology was significantly different.
The case, which was being heard in San Francisco, has now been referred to the US Attorney for investigation, by District Judge William Alsup.
Judge Alsup wrote: "The court takes no position on whether a prosecution is or is not warranted, a decision entirely up to the United States Attorney."
Waymo alleges that Uber and Mr Levandowski conspired to create the self-driving car start-up Otto so that Uber could appear to have legitimately acquired the same technology as Waymo was using.
Uber denies these allegations. Mr Levandowski has refused to hand the laptop on which he is alleged to have downloaded the documents over for examination, and declined to answer questions made by Waymo.
In putting the case forward to the US Attorney, the judge also denied a request by Uber which would have forced the lawsuit out of court and into arbitration.
Waymo described Uber's attempt to force arbitration as a "desperate bid" to avoid dealing with the suit.
"We welcome the court's decision today, and we look forward to holding Uber responsible in court for its misconduct," the Alphabet-owned company announced in a statement.
Uber stated: "We remain confident in our case and welcome the chance to talk about our independently developed technology in any forum."