Alphabet Inc. owned Waymo, an autonomous car driving company has taken legal action against Uber for alleged copyright: of keeping the company’s trade and technology secrets.
Former Waymo employee Anthony Levandowski is said to have extracted the company’s confidential documents before his exit from Google. Levandowski later founded Otto, a self-driving truck company acquired by Uber in 2016 for US$680mn.
Reports on CNN Tech reads “Waymo believes Uber executives, including then-CEO Travis Kalanick, knew about the stolen data. It claims the company used Waymo’s laser and radar technology called LiDAR to further its own self-driving efforts.”
The technology LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging. Its mechanism is used in self-driving cars to identify people and objects that come in the path.
Waymo spokesperson told CNN Tech, “We have accumulated significant and compelling evidence of Uber’s theft and use of Waymo’s trade secrets, and we look forward to finally presenting our case to the public.”
In 2017, Uber fired Levandowski. However, in its defense, Uber has denied the copyright claims as false allegations: the company said it only used its very own LiDAR technology in the make of self-driving cars.
Judge William Alsup is a federal judge in San Francisco in charge of the case. In a similar copyright case involving Google and Oracle, Alsup was the presiding judge.