Parts of Uber trial may be closed

With a trial set to begin in Waymo’s closely watched lawsuit against Uber over self-driving car technology, Waymo now wants significant portions of the proceedings closed to the public and press.

Waymo, the company formerly known as Google’s selfdriving car program, filed a motion Tuesday asking Judge William Alsup to close the courtroom and seal the trial record during any detailed testimony on four topics:

Waymo’s trade secrets and Uber’s alleged use of them.

Terms of Google acquisitions and partnerships, particularly Waymo’s collaboration with Uber competitor Lyft as well as a never-consummated Google partnership with Ford.

Waymo’s nonpublic financial information, business plans and projections for the self-driving car industry.

Confidential details of the salaries and bonuses of most Waymo employees.

“While Waymo respects the right of public access to judicial proceedings, public dissemination of these limited categories of information would cause considerable harm to Waymo’s competitive standing and employee priva-

cy,” the company’s legal team wrote in their request.

At a pretrial hearing Wednesday, Alsup asked any news organizations interested in commenting to submit briefs.

“You need to do it soon, because the trial is set for Oct. 10, so please keep that deadline in mind,” he said.

The lawsuit, filed in February, pits two of the biggest players in the emerging field of autonomous vehicles against each other. It has drawn intense media interest, in part because it illustrates the fierce competition for talent and ideas in the fast-growing industry.

Former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski, who worked on Google’s self-driving car project before it took on the Waymo name, plays a key role in the case. Waymo claims that he took self-driving car secrets with him after he left the company to found a startup that Uber later acquired. Levandowski, who has since been fired by Uber, has used his Fifth Amendment rights and declined to testify.

Significantly, Waymo’s request to close any discussion of employee salaries and bonuses would still allow discussion of Levandowski’s compensation. Uber has argued that Levandowski, while still at Google, downloaded thousands of internal documents — not to hand over to Uber but to use as leverage to ensure that Google paid him all of a $120 million bonus.

Waymo has also requested that the trial be delayed until December. But Alsup, with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, on Wednesday suggested that he may deny that request. He will meet with lawyers from the opposing sides on Oct. 3 to discuss it.

“I still am doing my best to keep the trial date on Oct. 10,” he said.