Google's Waymo Accuses Uber of Stealing Its Autonomous Secrets

by Matt Posky

February 24th, 2017 1:00 PM

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google s waymo accuses uber of stealing its autonomous secrets

Waymo is suing over claims that a former employee stole the design for one of its LIDAR systems and brought it to a competitor. The alleged theft of Waymo’s intellectual property came to light after the company was accidentally privy to an email chain that described an Uber design for a LIDAR circuit board that looked very familiar.

So familiar, in fact, that the Google-backed Waymo filed a lawsuit on Thursday in a California federal court. The suit accuses former Google employee Anthony Levandowski of stealing its tech for the LIDAR sensor used by the Otto autonomous startup company. Unfortunately for Waymo, Uber paid $680 million for Otto last August and is currently using the potentially stolen designs.

According to a blog post written by the Waymo team, Levandowski downloaded over 14,000 confidential and proprietary designs for its current software six weeks before leaving Google. Those files included designs for the LIDAR and circuit board.

“Mr. Levandowski searched for and installed specialized software onto his company-issued laptop. Once inside, he downloaded 9.7 GB of Waymo’s highly confidential files and trade secrets, including blueprints, design files and testing documentation. Then he connected an external drive to the laptop. Mr. Levandowski then wiped and reformatted the laptop in an attempt to erase forensic fingerprints,” claims the Waymo posting. “Months before the mass download of files, Mr. Levandowski told colleagues that he had plans to ‘replicate’ Waymo’s technology at a competitor.”

The company also says it thinks other former employees have left its ranks to join Otto and Uber’s self-driving efforts, bringing valuable trade secrets with them. Waymo says it’s all part of one big collaborative plan to steal its intellectual property.

The court filling includes patent infringement, unlawful misappropriation of industrial secrets, and unfair business practices. Waymo wants an injunction to end the use of what it believes are its own designs, and is demanding a trial over the matter.

[Image: Waymo]

#Autonomous #CorporateEspionage #Google #LegalAction #LegalMatters #Otto #SelfDriving #Uber #Waymo

Matt Posky

Consumer advocate tracking industry trends, regulation, and the bitter-sweet nature of modern automotive tech. Research focused and gut driven.

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SCE to AUX on Feb 24, 2017

"Show me the blueprints." "Show me the blueprints." "Show me the blueprints." "Show me the blueprints!"

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Stuki on Feb 24, 2017

Once the ambulance chasers take over the shop with all their clueless, self righteous childishness, no wonder the engineers are leaving. Levandowski knew as much about autonomous tech as anyone. His brain wouldn't magically be erased by leaving his Waymo office. If he did bring actual documents, the only role they served were one of convenience. Not having to retype all the stuff, and rerun the experiments, at a new place. The value add of Otto was never a circuit board design for a technology (Lidar) that, with the current fashionableness of all things "self driving," are obsoleted every six months anyway. Instead, the value add was application of knowledge gained in the context of a more general solution to "'se;d driving," to one more specifically aimed at a much simpler subset of the problem(s) Levandowski worked on at Google/Waymo: That of heavy trucks driving on highways. Waymo could have specifically targetted trucks as well, and Levandowski would never have left. But they didn't, so he did, and in the process helped make "self driving" something with a least a sliver of potential to be something more than just hype. Which is more than any lawyer, investor, manager nor other self promoting semi literate neither have, nor ever will, accomplish. Which, of course, won't stop them from doing the only thing they are capable of: Trying to get the power of the state to help them stick their useless, grubby fingers into value chains created and fed by those that are actually trying to do something useful with their lives.

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- SCE to AUX on Feb 24, 2017
  
  "If he did bring actual documents, the only role they served were one of convenience." Yes, but one aim of protecting intellectual property is to make it difficult to replicate the knowledge somewhere else. And then when you do (by memory, let's say), it needs to have sufficient distinction from the original to not be considered a copy. Companies understand this, and often try to enforce non-compete rules on certain high-value employees so they don't jump to a competitor with the goods, sometimes for a year or so. Boldly copying electronic files is expressly forbidden. Being a bright guy doesn't entitle you to steal the files just because you'd figure it out anyway.
  
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- Mcs on Feb 25, 2017
  
  @SCE to AUX I pretty much remember and could re-create any significant code I've ever created. That's the kind of stuff you don't forget. That being said, every time I left a company to compete with them was because I didn't like what they were doing in terms of design direction and wouldn't touch their code with a ten-foot pole anyway. When I was younger and a bit naive, I used to think that I could come in and fix screwed up companies. I was wrong.
  
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- Stuki on Feb 25, 2017
  
  @mcs "...every time I left a company to compete with them was because I didn’t like what they were doing in terms of design direction..." As in, didn't like the excessive cautiousness at Waymo/Google, which would pretty much guarantee years spent "making sure," before attempting to get anything obviously significant off the ground. So you get the heck out with all you have learned so far in life, and start Otto. Which noone really minds, as you'll just crash and burn anyway, being a loose cannon cowboy. It's not like the "email logs" from the pre-Otto days, only yesterday became known, after all. Instead, the whole lawsuit is not about Levandowski "stealing", but about slowing down and upping the cost/risk for Uber. By means of weaseling around with lawyers. Rather than beating them braino y braino.
  
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- Mcs on Feb 25, 2017
  
  @stuki Waymo, as far as I know, is being overly cautious in some bad ways. I think they need to be a bit more aggressive when it comes to testing environments. Maybe they are and I don't know about it.
  
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