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Alphabet Wants Its Lawsuit Against Uber To Play Out Publicly (recode.net)

Posted by BeauHD on from the sit-back-and-relax dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: The company filed an opposition request late last night to Uber's motion for arbitration. If the case went to arbitration, an alternate form for dispute resolution, it would remain in private. Alphabet self-driving subsidiary Waymo "has not consented to arbitrate this dispute with Uber," the new filing said, "and Waymo cannot be coerced into arbitration simply because the trade secrets that Uber stole and that Uber is using in Uber's self-driving cars happen to come from former Waymo employees. That is not the law." Alphabet alleges that its proprietary self-driving technology is being used by the ride-hailing company illegally. The Google parent company claims that Uber's self-driving head at the center of the case, Anthony Levandowski, stole 14,000 files from Alphabet, where he worked on self-driving technology before leaving to launch autonomous truck startup Otto. Uber acquired Otto in August. Alphabet alleged the files Levandowski stole include designs for Alphabet's lidar -- light detection and ranging -- technology. Lidar is a key component to most self-driving systems. Legal arguments aside, there are questions surrounding what might motivate each company's position on openness of proceedings. Alphabet's opposition suggested Uber is seeking to delay proceedings, including a hearing on an injunction Alphabet wants against Uber and to prevent public access to proceedings. "Uber does not like what the public is learning through this litigation about Uber's illegal and unfair competition," the latest filing said.

14 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Remember kids by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Arbitration is just for suckers like you. Corporations will force you to agree to arbitration and drop your right to sue. But for them it's jury trials all the way.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re:Remember kids by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Uber knows they are screwed in this situation, so almost anything they can change gives them a better chance.

      Google's LIDAR designs are all patented, so they are public anyway. They don't need to hide it in a trial.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Remember kids by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Arbitration is just for suckers like you.

      Or for people that want reasonable prices. Lawsuits are expensive, and those costs are passed on to customers. Arbitration is dramatically less expensive (for both parties). I have been through both civil lawsuits and private arbitration, and I would choose to arbitrate every time. I am happy to sign the arbitration clause in any contract, and put them in every contract that I initiate.

    3. Re: Remember kids by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

      Not sure about that. The case is over trade secrets , so google might be suing outside of arbitration to ensure the outcome is on public record if it needs to be referenced in a patent application they haven't made yet , to avert uber ambushing the application with (stolen) prior art

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    4. Re:Remember kids by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      The problem is when arbitration is mandatory, and there is no possibility to start a lawsuit.

      Why is that a problem? Private arbitration is cheaper, faster, and more accessible to people who can't afford a lawyer. By making it mandatory, the cost of drawn out frivolous lawsuits, where most of the settlement goes to the attorneys, isn't pushed onto other customers.

  2. Alphabet rights by XSportSeeker · · Score: 1

    As should be possible to do by any individual who is forced into arbitration, not just huge powerful companies like Alphabet/Google.

  3. Re:Between Uber and Google, so.. by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    I find it bizarre that they would even try. ..however, because it is actually about the contracts of the former Waymo(google) employees, it might have agreed - just to not reveal their non-compete slavery contracts publicly.

    I mean come on, who would go to work for a company after which you can't work in the same fucking field that you are an expert in? Like a LIDAR expert goes to a different company - the wtf is he supposed to work on expect lidar.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  4. Re:Between Uber and Google, so.. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

    I mean come on, who would go to work for a company after which you can't work in the same fucking field that you are an expert in?

    Non-compete agreements are not enforceable in California. This dispute is not about non-compete agreements. It is about theft of trade secrets.

  5. Re:Between Uber and Google, so.. by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    the theft is probably also under googles arbitration employee bs. contract.

    file numbers are kind of.. well. irrelevant? whose files? personal notes?

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  6. Weird... by wardrich86 · · Score: 1

    Google used to run ads for Uber in Google Maps. How long has this law suit been going on for?

    1. Re:Weird... by hackel · · Score: 1

      Used to? They still do. Uber and Lyft just showed up for me yesterday. Google is ultimately an advertising company and I doubt they're going to take them down over this. I'm just pissed because I actually followed on of those initial Uber adverts when it was first added to Maps that offered a $10 or $15 credit on your first ride. Nope. No credit at all. Assholes.

    2. Re:Weird... by wardrich86 · · Score: 1

      Weird... I was able to use mine without any problem. I believe you have to use a coupon code in order to get the discounted rate, though.

  7. Re:Between Uber and Google, so.. by Goldsmith · · Score: 1

    If you work for any company (or these days, a university) doing technology development, you're required to sign IP assignment agreements.

    A good organization will list the specific IP being held as a trade secret as part of your exit agreement when you leave. The best situation for everyone is clarity and clear ownership of very specific items.

    A bad organization will try to blanket claim everything it can extending past the time of employment. The trick here is, you don't have to sign those agreements. It's all a negotiation. I've worked at places where I did not sign the IP assignment agreement, and while the lawyers hated it, it's their own damn fault for crafting an agreement that was overly broad.

  8. Should be released as Open Source by hackel · · Score: 1

    All of the code should be released as Open Source. There's no reason I should have to trust my very *life* to proprietary software. Make Uber pay Google for using their software, then force *both* companies to release all of the code and continue development jointly, *in public*. This is the answer.