Alphabet Loses Another Trade Secret Claim In Its Lawsuit Against Uber (recode.net)

In a new order dated Nov. 2, Judge William Alsup said that Alphabet's self-driving arm Waymo cannot pursue one of the nine trade secrets it had accused Uber of misappropriating. The company had already been ordered to narrow its more than 120 trade secrets down to nine. Recode reports: The judge said, among other things, that the expert opinion that Alphabet used to assert this claim was unreliable. While the other eight trade secrets remain intact, it's worth mentioning this was the same expert that Waymo relied on to substantiate those claims. "Waymo's case continues to shrink," an Uber spokesperson said. "After dropping their patent claims, this week Waymo lost one of the trade secrets they claimed was most important, had their damages expert excluded, and saw an entire defendant removed from the case -- and all this before the trial has even started." An Alphabet spokesperson said the document did provide additional evidence to bolster its remaining claims. Additionally, Alphabet's case for the monetary damages it wanted -- more than $1 billion for a single trade secret -- will rest squarely on its own arguments. In a yet-unsealed document, the judge said that Alphabet could not call on its damages expert during the trial.

Comments

Is "expert" synonymous with compensated?

[rmdingler]

If so, this is instantaneously Waymo complicated .

Re: Is "expert" synonymous with compensated?

[Anonymous Coward]

Waymo doesn't seem to have any major breakthroughs for a few years now so they are desperate to stall progress for competitors.

A few years ago when they came up with the stupid rethink of how a autonomous car should be designed into a piece of unimaginative shit which is just a butt ugly car that looks just like a butt ugly car just without steering and paddles....
From that you know quite clearly that they are out of ideas. If that is how they rethink stuff, then a 4 yr old can do better.

The deterioration of American culture

[Anonymous Coward]

I miss the old days, when companies had logical and descriptive names. General Electric, International Business Machines. Nowadays it just seems like people pick the silliest sounding words they can come up with. It's sad.

Re:The deterioration of American culture

[Anonymous Coward]

You need a 6 to 10 letter name so you can register somename.com domain. Since most good domain names are already taken, you are left coming up with weird names that no one has registered yet.

Trade secret

[Anonymous Coward]

is not a secret if more than one knows what it is. This is the law. Believe me. I know all there is to know on trade secret law.

The law should not protect trade secrets

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what patents are for.

Re: The law should not protect trade secrets

[Anonymous Coward]

No, patents offer limited protection for things that are made public, in those places only where the parents are valid. This is very different from a trade secret, which is secret.

Re: The law should not protect trade secrets

[Aighearach]

Yeah, none of this is surprising; if you think you have hundreds of trade secrets, you might have a handful. Trade secrets have a narrow legal definition and not everything that your business chooses to keep confidential is automatically a trade secret, but companies like to claim as many as they can. The real case (eg, damages) is only going to be about the small handful that are meaningful.

Sounds familiar...

[hyades1]

All your judges are belong to us!

Evil v. Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Google v. Uber?

When that much evil meets in the courtroom, what happens?