Uber Denies It Is Using Stolen Waymo Technology -
By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI and MIKE ISAACAPRIL 7, 2017
SAN FRANCISCO — Uber denied claims from Waymo, the self-driving car company spun out of Google’s parent company last year,
that it is using driverless car technology stolen by a former Google employee.
He said Waymo had “clear evidence” that Uber was using or planned to use Waymo technology,
“as seen in both circuit board blueprints and filings in the State of Nevada.”
Uber said it should not have to stop work on self-driving cars because its lidar is still in development
and is based on a 2015 design from one of its employees, while the one on Uber’s current self-driving car is an off-the-shelf version from a supplier.
At the time, Waymo said the injunction was warranted because Mr. Levandowski colluded with Uber
and systematically stole 14,000 files of proprietary company documents before leaving Google to start his own self-driving truck company, Otto, in February 2016.
Judge William Alsup in United States District Court in San Francisco said in a hearing earlier this week
that since neither Uber nor Mr. Levandowski were denying that the documents were stolen, the fact that the documents had not been found in Uber’s possession was not enough to stave off an injunction.
