Uber says it has no stolen car files
Waymo alleges theft of 14,000 documents
SAN FRANCISCO A contentious lawsuit that could affect the development of self-driving cars took another hairpin turn Friday when Uber filed a response to the suit by Google’s self-driving car company Waymo, saying it doesn’t have the 14,000 files Waymo claims one of Uber’s top executive’s stole.
Those files, Waymo claims in its suit, contain crucial information about proprietary LiDAR — light detection and ranging — sensor technology that is key to making autonomous vehicles a reality.
In the suit, filed Feb. 23, Waymo requested a temporary injunction that would prevent Uber from using its intellectual property.
It charged that Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer, surreptitiously downloaded 14,000 files that included plans for Waymo’s LiDAR system from company computers in December 2015, then left the company a month later.
In May 2016, the self-driving truck company called Otto that Levandowski founded launched out of stealth mode. In August 2016, Otto was bought by Uber for $670 million and Levandowski was tapped to run Uber’s nascent self-driving car project.
Waymo’s claim in its suit was that Uber’s system was a close copy of its LiDAR, giving Uber an unfair leg up in the cutthroat race to be the first to develop autonomous vehicle technology. The suit alleged trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement and unfair competition.
In Friday’s response, Uber says Waymo’s request for an injunction is “a misfire” because Uber never had access to any of the files.
“There is no evidence that any of the 14,000 files in question ever touched Uber’s servers,” said Angela Padilla, Uber’s associate general counsel.
Uber said its system is nothing like Waymo’s LiDAR.
“Waymo’s assertion that our multi-lens LiDAR is the same as their single-lens LiDAR is clearly false,” Padilla said. “If Waymo genuinely thought that Uber was using its secrets, it would not have waited more than five months to seek an injunction.”