In a recent report, Uber conceded in court that it has found one of the documents its Google competitor alleges was stolen by a former employee on that suspect's personal device. Google's autonomous car company, Waymo sued Uber Technologies last February for allegedly stealing trade secrets in a bid to create its self-driving vehicle unit, dubbed Otto.
More so, Uber has said its self-driving sensor technology is "fundamentally different" from Waymo, the driverless car division of Google's parent Alphabet. Also, Waymo claimed its former executive, Anthony Levandowski, stole the files before he joined Uber last year and last month filed a motion to halt work on Uber's self-driving car development. According to a report from a source, as a response, in a federal court filing on Friday, Uber explained that there are no Waymo computer files on autonomous technology ever ended up on its servers. Now, Waymo is pleading to the court to bar Uber from using anything that might be a Waymo trade secret, a request that if granted, could probably smash the brakes on Uber's self-driving vehicle program and as well as, shift the balance of power within the autonomous vehicle industry.
William Alsup, U.S. District Judge had stridulous words for Uber during Thursday's hearing. "Waymo is now asking for Uber to turn over those stolen documents as part of the discovery process in its trade secret lawsuit against its rival. On the other note, Uber argues that it cannot hand over anything from Levandowski without violating his Fifth Amendment rights which already thoroughly searched for the documents at Uber. Furthermore, Waymo also said Uber has thus far depleted to meet a deadline to turn over the documents it has listed in its complaint, including those 14,000 confidential Waymo documents.
