Uber fires back at Google spinoff

Uber is scoffing at claims that its expansion into self-driving cars hinges on stolen trade secrets.

SAN FRANCISCO >> Uber is scoffing at claims that its expansion into self-driving cars hinges on trade secrets stolen from a Google spinoff, arguing that its ridehailing service has been working on potentially superior technology.

The legal defense, presented in documents filed Friday in San Francisco federal court, marks Uber’s first detailed response to explosive allegations that its self-driving cars rely on crucial technology designed by Waymo. That company was created from an autonomous-vehicle project started at Google eight years ago.

Once a Google ally, Uber emerged as a rival in the self-driving car market in early 2015 when it began developing its own fleet of autonomous vehicles.

Now, Waymo is trying to thwart that effort by persuading U.S. District Judge William Alsup to block Uber’s self-car driving expansion on the grounds that it hinges on a high-tech heist. The case’s outcome could alter the race to build self-driving cars that may transform transportation, reduce traffic deaths and launch a huge new industry.

Waymo filed suit against Uber in February, claiming that a former manager, Anthony Levandowski, stole its patented ideas. After the alleged theft, Levandowski left Google early last year to found a self-driving car startup called Otto that Uber bought for $680 million last August.

But Uber is now presenting evidence that it began working on technology dramatically different from Waymo’s more than a year before buying Otto.

The dispute centers on a pivotal part of self-driving cars called LiDAR, an array of laser-based sensors that enable self-driving cars to see what’s around them so they can safely navigate roads.

In sworn declarations and diagrams, Uber argued that its engineers are working on a more sophisticated form of LiDAR than Waymo’s. Among other things, Uber says its LiDAR uses four lenses for transmitting and receiving laser lights as opposed to the single lens in Waymo’s version.

“Waymo could not be more wrong, and Uber’s design could not be more different,” Uber’s lawyers wrote in their rebuttal to the allegations. “And no wonder — Uber’s LiDAR was developed by a different team, using a different beam pattern, and leveraging different know-how.”

What’s more, Uber says its custom-designed LiDAR system hasn’t even been installed on the self-driving cars that it has been testing in Pittsburgh, Arizona and San Francisco. Instead, the company says it has been relying on LiDAR systems built by other vendors.

Much of the information contained in Friday’s filing was redacted to protect confidential business plans and secret technology.

Uber may have its work cut out to sway Alsup, who has said in previous court hearings that Waymo has presented some of the strongest evidence he has seen in his judicial career. A hearing on Waymo’s request for an injunction against Uber is scheduled for May 3.