Google vs. Uber Self-Driving Tech Head For Trial Amidst 'Stealing' IP
Google's driverless car company, "Waymo," has accused global taxi technology company Uber of stealing self-driving car technology. After almost a year of battling to go to court, the trial of Uber and Waymo finally opens on Feb. 5.
Waymo's lawyer Charles Verhoeven opened by saying that Uber wanted to beat Google and did so by cheating. Verhoeven also reminded the jury of former Google employee Anthony Levandowski allegedly downloading confidential Google information for Waymo's design and technology.
This statement was included in the Waymo Team's post in Medium on Feb. 24 last year: "He downloaded 9.7 GB of Waymo's highly confidential files and trade secrets, including blueprints, design files and testing documentation. Then he connected an external drive to the laptop. Mr. Levandowski then wiped and reformatted the laptop in an attempt to erase forensic fingerprints."
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Uber's lawyer Bill Carmody then said that Verhoeven's statements were all untrue. Carmody charged that there were no trade secrets that were stolen. Moreover, the Uber lawyer said that there was no evidence that Uber had used exclusive information retrieved from Google. Information may have been the same as Uber and Waymo were working on the same technology, said Carmody.
However, Carmody later added that Uber regretted "ever bringing Anthony Levandowski on board." According to him, the company had not benefitted in any way from Levandowski and now had to deal with the lawsuit.
Uber proceeded to show a 2011 e-mail where it was presented that Google had not trusted Levandowski either, but still employed him. Carmody went on to say that the fact that Uber "brought on board some rock star engineers" does not indicate that the company is guilty of any offense. Carmody notes this goes both ways for the two companies.
The trial continues for both parties.
