Judge's Order Bars Uber Engineer From LiDAR Work, Demands Returns of Stolen Files (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A U.S. federal judge has ordered Uber to bar its top self-driving car engineer from any work on LiDAR, and return stolen files to Google's self-driving car unit Waymo. Today's order by U.S. District Judge William Alsup demands Uber do "whatever it can to ensure that its employees return 14,000-plus pilfered files to their rightful owner." The files must be returned by May 31. The order was granted last week, but just made public in an unsealed document this morning. U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that Uber "likely knew or at least should have known" that the man it hired as its top self-driving car engineer, Anthony Levandowski, took and kept more than 14,000 Waymo files. Those files "likely contain at least some trade secrets," making some "provisional relief" for Waymo appropriate. Levandowski has previously asserted his Fifth Amendment rights with respect to his possession of the files. "If Uber were to threaten Levandowski with termination for noncompliance, that threat would be backed up by only Uber's power as a private employer, and Levandowski would remain free to forfeit his private employment to preserve his Fifth Amendment privilege," Alsup wrote. Several factors limit the amount of relief Waymo might receive. First of all, in the judge's view, not all of the 121 elements that Waymo defines as "trade secrets" are really trade secrets. Additionally, the judge has slapped aside Waymo's patent infringement accusations as "meritless."

Comments

Return?

[YuppieScum]

Return the files?

Did the judge really think this guy walked out pushing a trolley loaded with boxes of paperwork?

Or that he copied all 14,000 to an external HDD, then deleted all the originals and the backups, including all the off-site tapes?

Or is he so disconnected from contemporary reality that he doesn't know that what constitutes a "file" nowadays is not necessarily the same as when he studied law all those years ago?

Re:Return?

[DRJlaw]

Once the cat is out of the bag, they can't really have assurance that the files will be "returned" and copies not kept.

Philosophically true. Practically false. You would be wise to avoid messing with a Federal judge. Someone will find out. Someone will tell the other side, or the judge, or both. The judge will, in much more businesslike language, announce "JUDGE SMASH."

Grownups who are not sociopaths and have money at stake will try to avoid this fate. For example, they may fire the person messing with the judge, or simply throw them under the bus.