Alphabet's Waymo Sues Uber For Allegedly Stealing Self-Driving Secrets (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: It took Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo seven years to design and build a laser-scanning system to guide its self-driving cars. Uber Technologies Inc. allegedly did it in nine months. Waymo claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday that was possible because a former employee stole the designs and technology and started a new company. Waymo accuses several employees of Otto, a self-driving startup Uber acquired in August for $680 million, of lifting technical information from Google's autonomous car project. The "calculated theft" of Alphabet's technology earned Otto's employees more than $500 million, according to the complaint in San Francisco federal court. The claims in Thursday's case include unfair competition, patent infringement and trade secret misappropriation. Waymo was inadvertently copied on an e-mail from one of its vendors, which had an attachment showing an Uber lidar circuit board that had a "striking resemblance" to Waymo's design, according to the complaint. Anthony Levandowski, a former manager at Waymo, in December 2015 downloaded more than 14,000 proprietary and confidential files, including the lidar circuit board designs, according to the complaint. He also allegedly created a domain name for his new company and confided in some of his Waymo colleagues of plans to "replicate" its technology for a competitor. Levandowski left Waymo in January 2016 and went on in May to form Otto LLC, which planned to develop hardware and software for autonomous vehicles.

Comments

Surprise!

[msauve]

Uber doing something unethical? This isn't news, it's business as usual.

Re:Surprise!

[kelemvor4]

Uber doing something unethical? This isn't news, it's business as usual.

Come on now, they're saving us money! They can do no wrong!

Re:Surprise!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because Uber's business model is literally "ignore regulation". It sustains itself only because there are enough desperate employe^Wcontractors that the high churn doesn't affect their bottom line too much. Oh, and they're great at stalking ex partners of employees, so anyone with insider knowledge is going to be a little scared. Which isn't surprising, considering the CEO is an unabashed misogynist whose success is based entirely off having less idea of ethics than pretty much any tech CEO of any American tech darling founded since 2000. It seems now that they also engage in corporate espionage.

When Objectivism is consigned to the same dustbin of extremist history as Marxism, I hope undergrads will be given Uber as a case study. Although at least Marxism has some good critique of consumerism - shame about all the fire-and-brimstone dialectical materialism that wouldn't look out of place in the Book of Revelations.

Re:Surprise!

[TWX]

If Uber's vehicle age rules apply in the Phillippines and in other nations that are much financially poorer than the United States and Western Europe, then it would make sense that Uber rides would be more luxurious. Base taxis may well be whatever vehicle can be made to move under its own power and has accommodations for a passenger.

If Uber were priced in US and other Western markets where it naturally would be if it complied with the laws and regulations, it would probably occupy a tier somewhere between a conventional taxi and a luxury sedan service. Instead passenger livery regulations are violated and drivers are apparently subject to ridiculous shifts in order to pay for the cars they bought through the company store.

Re:Surprise!

[cheesybagel]

Well you could find that critique in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (IMO a much better written book) which predates it. Das Kapital is a turgid piece of crap. The only interesting quote from that book is the bit where he talks about "precious stones" and how they're basically junk in terms of basic materials and that they could one day be manufactured and priced like dirt. Then again Atlas Shrugged is just as bad a read with lots and lots of random pointless dialogue.

My advice: read The Wealth of Nations and skip those two.

If it's true...

[Anonymous Coward]

If these allegations are true, then the fallout from this suit is going to completely undermine Uber's long-term strategy. The direct financial hit may be enough to sink the company outright, but even if it doesn't, they'll be dead in the long term.

If the allegations are not true then it's an almighty blunder by Waymo; it'll hit their credibility really hard, but also their staff morale, because they'll all be wondering if they're going to be next to be falsely accused.

It would seem to me that Waymo know this, so they must believe they have good evidence and a watertight (uber-strong?) case or they wouldn't have gone public with it at all.

Google / Alphabet also has an investment in Uber, which muddies the waters further, and makes it even more certain that they'd only be doing this if they were absolutely convinced of it being true and of it holding up in court.

I'm looking forward to seeing this one play out. Whatever happens, it's going to be messy.

Just to add useful information

[squiggleslash]

Alphabet are alleging they have specific evidence the former employee downloaded the designs to a laptop, which he then tried to wipe to hide any trace he'd done this. Alphabet are also alleging the same former employee actually bragged about what he was going to do before he did it.

So... assuming they're not lying, this is pretty much open and shut. I guess we'll find out over the next few weeks.

Re:Just to add useful information

[TWX]

Probably over the next several years actually.

If Uber is forced to either pay Google to use the tech (which I assume is going to be very expensive) or is forced to abandon and restart development from scratch (which may mean having to essentially form a brand new team of employees since current ones may be unable to participate because of their previous association) then Uber's intentions to switch from their current driver-based model to a driverless model may not be possible. If that's so then it makes me wonder if Uber has any chance of succeeding, since it's pretty clear that their human-driven model is shaky at best. They may not be able to sustain it until they have self-driving tech without raising prices, which means at some point they won't be the better choice, from a consumer point of view, than a conventional taxi.

Re:Inadvertently attached to an unintended recieve

[hajo]

Software code DOES get subpoenaed all the time in disputes. This doesn't even have to be criminal cases, in civil cases as well. If the code resides in a version control system of some sort they typically get all of that as well. (Some smart guys have tried to deliver code in printed form to bury the other party but the courts have mostly refused those 'smart' tactics.
Email gets subpoenaed all the time as well. Again bot in civil and criminal cases. Also from outside vendors. This is not a big issue. A company gets a subpoena from a judge and they hand over the data. What is troubling with surveillance in the US is that it is happening on a massive scale without judicial oversight.
Your latest paragraph is moot. Once served with a subpoena those materials HAVE to be turned over. It doesn't matter where the data resides. If people can see it and manipulate it it can be turned over.