Trade secrets trial between Waymo and Uber regarding self-driving cars starts today
05-02-2018 Print this page
Financial Times: ”The high-profile lawsuit between Uber and autonomous driving rival Waymo will go to trial this week following a nearly year-long battle of theft allegations involving encrypted texts, untraceable phones and secret meetings.[…]
Waymo has accused Uber of stealing eight trade secrets that relate to the design of a type of sensor called Lidar that is used in self-driving cars, and the jury trial will begin Feb 5. Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, alleges that its former employee Anthony Levandowski downloaded Lidar designs before quitting Waymo to launch his own company, an autonomous trucking group called Otto. Just six months after leaving Waymo, Mr Levandowski, who by that point had become very friendly with Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick, sold Otto to Uber for about $680m and became the head of Uber’s self-driving car project."
