Google sues Uber over self-driving car technology theft

Google's parent company, Alphabet, has filed a lawsuit accusing Uber of stealing its self-driving car technology. According to this lawsuit, Alphabet claims that a manager, who left their company's self-driving car division - Waymo, stole some confidential technical data and formed a competing venture under a new name - Otto. Otto was later acquired by Uber through a deal which is rumoured to amount to $680 million. Google has now accused that Otto is using their patented technology and has thus filed a case describing it as "an action for trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement and unfair competition."

Anthony Levandowski is the ex-Google manager who has been accused of stealing Alphabet's technology. The lawsuit claims that Levandowski downloaded over 14,000 files to a laptop from Google's confidential design server in December 2015. After taking the downloaded files on a storage drive, he reportedly formatted the laptop to erase any traces of the downloaded data. Levandowski subsequently had several meetings with high-level executives at Uber's headquarters in January 2016 and filed his resignation from Google by the end of the month.

Google claims that most of the stolen information revolves around its LiDAR sensors. LiDAR is a laser-based technology that is used to sense the surroundings of a self-driving car. Through the lawsuit, Alphabet is now trying to stop Otto and Uber from using this technology, which it claims is patented under Google's name.

Source: ET Auto