- Google is suing Uber claiming it is using the web giant's secrets of self-driving cars after a 'calculated theft'
- Former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski is accused of downloading 14,000 highly confidential files before he left to set up his own firm
- That firm was sold to Uber just after he received his final payment from Google - and Google say it is using the trade secrets he took
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Uber has hit back at claims a key sensor on its self driving car was stolen from arch rival Waymo.
It said its self-driving sensor technology was 'fundamentally different' from Waymo's, blasting the Alphabet unit's claim that it profited from stolen files in the race to roll out the first driverless car.
Uber said in a federal court filing that 14,000 of Waymo's computer files on autonomous technology never ended up on its servers, despite Waymo's claim that its former executive, Anthony Levandowski, stole them before joining Uber.
Waymo sued Uber in February, seeking a preliminary injunction to stop it from using trade secrets and other intellectual property at the center of the case.
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High-profile: Levandowski, a 'swaggering' six-foot-seven tech leader, is one of Silicon Valley's most significant figures in the development of self-driving cars
Waymo said Uber was able to quickly scale up its autonomous program after Levandowski downloaded the files before his departure to form a company that Uber then acquired.
Levandowski leads Uber's self-driving program.
The rivals are vying to bring self-driving cars to the masses in a field that includes established carmakers, little-known start-ups and major technology companies.
'The record shows that Uber never possessed - and never used - any information Mr. Levandowski allegedly took from Waymo,' Uber wrote in its filing.
Levandowski, the central witness in the case, has sought his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and will not testify, over concerns about the possibility of a criminal case being filed.
Levandowski has not handed over the allegedly stolen documents and Uber, which has never denied that Levandowski took the files, claims it cannot force him to do so.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco has ordered Uber to d o a more thorough search of its computer systems to see if the documents are in its possession.
'You haven't searched well enough,' he told Uber's lawyer at a hearing on Wednesday.
Alsup has also suggested that Uber had leverage over Levandowski it had not used, such as threatening to fire him should he not hand over the documents.
'If you cannot find them in your files there is going to be a preliminary injunction. You're not denying it, no one is denying he has the 14,000 files,' Alsup said.
'You keep on your payroll someone who took 14,000 documents and is liable to use them.'
Google claims that Anthony Levandowski downloaded 14,000 files of information while working for them - then went off to set up a self-driving car firm which he had already said would be bought by Uber.
Anthony Levandowski is a fiercely talented and driven man w ho Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick (left) has likened to his brother from another mother - but now he is accused of stealing Google's self-driving car secrets before he left to work for Uber
The explosive claims are being aired in a bitter legal dispute in San Francsico federal court, where the two tech giants worth more than $800 billion combined are squaring off to determine the future of self-driving cars.
Lawyers acting for Google are trying to get Judge William Alsup to stop Uber from using what it claims are stolen trade secrets to develop its driverless vehicles.
Google and its subsidiary Waymo claim that one of its former engineers downloaded 14,000 highly confidential files before he left and set up Otto.
Otto is now Uber's self-driving truck company - and Google claim that the car-service company has benefited from its secrets to th e tune of $500 million.
It alleges that one of the key figures in Google's self-driving cars, Anthony Levandowski, downloaded their trade secrets, set up his own firm and promptly sold it to Uber - who now benefit from the cache of Google's know-how.
In the lawsuit, Google claims that it is 'calculated theft' and that it made Uber half a billion dollars.
Pioneering: Waymo, Google's self-driving car firm, produced the first cars with no pedals, steering wheel, or driver. They use Google's LiDAR to 'see'
In a post on the blogging site Medium, Google claimed that 'misappropriating this technology is akin to stealing a secret recipe from a beverage company'.
In court documents Uber say that Levandowski had acknowledged speaking an Uber executive involved with self-driving cars i n summer 2015 - when Levandowski was still working for Google.
Pierre-Yves Droz, the principal hardware engineer at Waymo, made the explosive allegation in sworn testimony
'Mr. Levandowski had previously told me, in or around the summer of 2015, that he had talked with Brian McClendon, an Uber executive involved with their self-driving car project,' he said in court papers filed at federal court.
'We were having dinner at a restaurant near the office, and he told me that it would be nice to create a new self-driving car startup and that Uber would be interested in buying the team responsible for the LiDAR we were developing at Google.'
The extraordinary case has pulled back the curtain on the cutthroat world of Silicon Valley and the espionage-like tactics that companies allegedly use on their rivals.
Roll-out: Uber bought Otto in August 2016. Google says that the Otto trucks use its LiDAR technology to see the world around them
It is on the same level as the battle between Apple and Samsung over the iPhone patent and could have major consequences for self-driving cars, a nascent industry predicted to be worth $42 billion by 2025.
At stake is Uber's entry into the self-driving car world, which has seen it reveal both self-driving Uber cars and self-driving trucks.
Should Uber lose, it will cap a miserable year in which it has been accused of creating an aggressive corporate culture which allows women to be sexually harassed.
That could put at stake its long-term future by badly damaging its corporate reputation.
At the center of it is Levandowski, a fiercely talented and driven man who Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick has likened to his brother from another mother, praise which now is rather problematic given the company's recent problems.
The 36-year-old, who stands six foot seven inches tall and has been described as 'swaggering' in one profile, is also known for skirting rules and doing things his own way.
Levandowski is a legend in the driverless car industry and developed Google's self-driving car program in his spare time through his own startup, 510 Systems, in 2008 while working on the company's Street View maps.
After a successful test he persuaded a dubious Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google's founders, to buy 510 Systems and develop the car further.
Since then Google has sunk billions into self-driving cars while Uber has tested self-driving trucks and taxis, with the goal of replacing drivers for both.
Rivals Tesla, General Motors and Ford are investing billions in the industry, too.
The legal dispute centers around Levandowski's decision to leave Google in January and set up his own company, Otto, which was bought by Uber for around $680m three months later.
The speed with which this happened caused Waymo 'grave concern' that it had been ripped off, concerns which, the lawsuit claims, were justified.
In the lawsuit, Google claims that Levandowski's move is 'calculated theft' and that it made Uber half a billion dollars
Waymo is seeking an unspecified amount of damages and a court order preventing Uber from using its proprietary information - bringing its self driving project to a halt.
According to documen ts filed in the Northern District of California, Waymo developed its own system of laser sensors known as LiDAR which scan and map the world in real time, allowing driverless cars to 'see' the world and move around without hitting anything.
Waymo invested 'tens of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours of engineering time' in the project.
The result was that the company ran the world's first self-driving trip in a car with no wheels or foot pedals.
The lawsuit states that Waymo's suspicions intensified when it was 'apparently inadvertently' copied on an email from one of its vendors which had images attached to it of what was an Uber LiDAR circuit board.
The circuit board bore a 'striking resemblance to Waymo's own highly confidential and proprietary design and reflects Waymo trade secrets', it's claimed.
The lawsuit says this is evidence that Otto and Uber's driverless systems 'infringe multiple LiDAR technology patents awarded to Waymo'.
'Uber's LiDAR technology is actually Waymo's LiDAR technology,' Waymo allege.
Waymo said in the lawsuit: 'Fair competition spurs new technical innovation, but what has happened here is not fair competition.
'Instead, Otto and Uber have taken Waymo's intellectual property so that they could avoid incurring the risk, time, and expense of independently developing their own technology.'
According to documents filed in the Northern District of California, Waymo developed its own system of laser sensors known as LiDAR which scan and map the world in real time, allowing driverless cars to 'see' the world and move around without hitting anything
W aymo alleges that Uber is guilty of trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement and unfair competition.
It accused Levandowski of downloading 14,000 confidential documents, including information on Waymo's LiDAR circuit board.
Waymo alleges that he undertook 'extraordinary efforts to raid Waymo's designer server' and downloaded 9.7 gigabytes of 'highly confidential data' to an external hard drive.
Levandowski is said to have connected the drive to his computer and apparently transferred the data somewhere - then wiped the machine and never used it again.
The lawsuit claims that he also downloaded additional confidential Waymo documents to a personal device including five 'highly sensitive internal presentations containing proprietary technical details'.
And it claims that after he left to st art up his own self-driving car technology company, other Google employs left to work with him.
'A number of Waymo employees subsequently also left to join Anthony Levandowski's new business, downloading additional Waymo trade secrets in the days and hours prior to their departure,' Waymo alleges.
'These secrets included confidential supplier lists, manufacturing details and statements of work with highly technical information, all of which reflected the results of Waymo's months-long, resource-intensive research into suppliers for highly specialized LiDAR sensor components.'
On March 10, Waymo upped the ante and filed a request for an immediate injunction against Uber to stop it using its technology.
It included testimony from three Waymo employees which it said showed clearly that Levandowski had stolen trade secrets. The most damning was Pierre -Yves Droz, who co-founded 510 Systems with Levandowski before Google bought it in 2011.
Droz claimed that Levandowski met with Uber's vice president of mapping, Brian McClendon, in the summer of 2015 and that Levandowski was surprisingly open about his future plans.
Droz's testimony said: 'We were having dinner at a restaurant near the office, and [Levandowski] told me that it would be nice to create a new self-driving car startup and that Uber would be interested in buying the team responsible for the LiDAR we were developing at Google.
'Later in January 2016, a colleague told me that Mr Levandowski had been seen at Uber's headquarters in mid January.
The lawsuit gives evidence for why they believe Otto and Uber's driverless systems 'infringe multiple LiDAR technology patents awarded to Waymo'
'I asked Mr Levandowski about this, and he admitted he had met with Uber, and the reason he was there was that he was looking for investors for his new company.'
At that time Otto, Levandowski's company, was being set up but was not officially founded.
Droz said: 'I distinctly remember taking a walk around our Mountain View office one-on-one with Mr. Levandowski on or around January 5, 2016.
'During this walk, he told me specifically that he wanted his new company to have a long-range LiDAR, which is very useful for self-driving truck applications he was interested in. He also told me that he planned to 'replicate' this Waymo technology at his new company.'
It also highlighted the speed with which Uber took over Levandowski's firm.
'Otto launched publicly in May 2016, and was quickly acquired by Ube r in August 2016 for $680 million. (Notably, Otto announced the acquisition shortly after Mr. Levandowski received his final multi-million dollar compensation payment from Google.),' Waymo's court papers say.
The case is being heard by Judge Alsup, who will have to decide on Waymo's request for the injunction before the proper trial in April. Judge Alsup will almost certainly allow the trial of the Waymo and Uber case to be shown live if the press request it, adding to the spotlight for both companies
There was also testimony from Waymo security engineer Gary Brown, whose forensic tests of Levandowski's Google-issued laptop allegedly showed he downloaded 14,000 files from the company.
In addition to Levandowski, former Google employees Sameer Kshirsagar and Radu Raduta are also accused of downloading additional Waymo trade secrets, such as c onfidential supplier lists, before they left.
As a sign of how rancorous the case is, Google has filed 38 newspaper articles showing how far behind Uber is when it comes to automated cars.
Among the articles is a piece from the tech website The Verge about how Uber 'gutted' the top robotics lab at Carnegie Mellon to create its self-driving cars in what was supposed to be a partnership arrangement.
'These guys, they took everybody,' a person who worked there said.
Google alleges that Uber's self-driving car program was started in February 2015 and that it was 'late to enter the self-driving market'.
A year later the program was 'floundering' despite hundreds of people working on the project, and therefore resorted to 'willful, malicious and fraudulent' conduct by allegedly stealing its top secret information.
According to Waymo, Uber wanted to catch up 'by any means necessary'.
Tech website Recode reported that Levandowski was hired by Kalanick, the boss of Uber, when he became frustrated that the Carnegie Mellon team were not making progress fast enough.
Recode also reported that Kalanick felt that Uber was not living up to its win-at-all-cost culture; the company routinely skips around regulation in new markets until city officials catch up with it.
The case is being heard by Judge Alsup, who will have to decide on Waymo's request for the injunction before the proper trial in April.
In court filings he has asked for both sides to get their arguments in order and noted in one order that Waymo is asking for 'extraordinary and drastic relief'.
The judge is no stranger to these types of cases and has presid ed over a dispute between Google and Oracle in a high stakes patent dispute.
He is also not afraid to express his opinion.
During one hearing, the judge scolded both companies and said: 'You're both asking for the moon and you should be more reasonable.'
Judge Alsup will almost certainly allow the trial of the Waymo and Uber case to be shown live if the press request it, adding to the spotlight for both companies.
During the Oracle and Google dispute, he admonished the Oracle lawyer when he tried to close it down.
Judge Alsup said: 'This is public proceeding. Your lawyers and companies are not going to handcuff the court.
'This is not a wholly owned subsidiary of Oracle Corp.'
A spokesman for Uber said: 'We are incredibly proud of the progress that our tea m has made.
'We have reviewed Waymo's claims and determined them to be a baseless attempt to slow down a competitor and we look forward to vigorously defending against them in court.
'In the meantime, we will continue our hard work to bring self-driving benefits to the world.'
