Uber will continue testing its autonomous cars, at least for now, as it ended its Day In Court Wednesday without a decision from US District Judge William Alsup. The judge did not issue the injunction Waymo has requested that would have stopped Uber’s self-driving plans.
The case could still go to arbitration or a jury trial in the fall.
Waymo’s case against Uber
Waymo accused Anthony Levandowski of stealing 14,000 documents when he was still working at Waymo and allegedly used those confidential files to create his own company Otto, a self-driving truck company bought by Uber.
Google’s autonomous vehicle division claims that Levandowski has created his company with the use of Waymo’s LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging). LiDAR is a sensor installed in self-driving vehicles to see their exact location and the vehicles around them.
Waymo’s lawyer, Charles Verhoeven, claims that Uber’s vice president of mapping Brian McClendon had already been in touch with Levandowski before he abruptly quit Google’s self-driving firm in January of last year.
Levandowski was allegedly planning a deal with Uber in which he would take the knowledge about Waymo’s LiDAR and adapt it to build Uber’s own LiDAR system. Also, Levandowski was given 5.3 million shares of Uber stock amounting to $250 million that dated on the day he abruptly left Google.
Uber’s defense
About the shares, Uber clarified that the stock was given to Levandowski after the company hired him. However, the stock was backdated to the day when he created Otto. Uber stated that it is a common practice to backdate stocks to a date when a person joined a company that was being acquired.
Arturo Gonzales, Uber’s lawyer, asserted that Waymo has not been able to provide evidence that the 14,000 stolen files made its way to Uber.
Gonzales insisted that Uber did not use any of Waymo's trade secrets. Gonzales also said engineers at Uber knew nothing about the 14,000 stolen files before the case was filed.
If the judge had decided in favor of Waymo, it would have jeopardized Uber and its testing of autonomous vehicles. An injunction would have added an indictment of Uber, which already faced several scandals such as accusations of running a sexist workplace and programs that deceived regulators and rivals.
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