Waymo seeks delay in self-driving car trade secrets theft trial against Uber
Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet, has asked a US court to delay the trial in its trade-secret lawsuit against ride-hailing startup Uber. Waymo has cited a recently submitted report from Uber, which the Google company needs more time to review. The lawsuit in which Waymo has accused Uber of stealing its self-driving car technology trade secrets was scheduled to begin on October 10, 2017. The central claim in the lawsuit is that former Google employee Anthony Levandowski had stolen 14,000 highly confidential files before leaving the company and starting his own self-driving truck startup Otto. Uber had acquired Otto in August 2016 for $ 680 million (Rs 4,353 crore approx).
Waymo claims Anthony Levandowski stole 14,000 confidential files before he founded Otto, which was later bought by Uber
While at Waymo, Anthony Levandowski had played a key role in the development of the Lidar technology a key component of Google's self-driving car project. Lidar stands for light detection and ranging. The technology enables the car to see for itself by measuring the light intensity and distance of its surroundings. Using this, the car can detect pedestrians, traffic, bicyclists as well as other objects around it. Waymo claims that stolen trade secrets helped Levandowski develop driverless car tech for Uber. To validate its claims, Waymo had been seeking a due diligence report which Uber had completed before it bought Otto, stating that it would contain enough evidence to further the case. The US court had ordered Uber to hand over this report to Waymo last week. Now, the Alphabet company is seeking time to go through this report.
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