Waymo is naming Anthony Levandowski in the lawsuit

Feb 23, 2017 23:31 GMT  ·  By

Waymo, Alphabet Inc's self-driving car company, is suing Uber and Otto, its self-driving truck company. Waymo claims key technology was stolen from them by Uber. 

According to the lawsuit filed in a Californian court, Anthony Levandowski is accused of stealing Waymo's secrets. Levandowski, if you'll remember, is an engineer who left Google to found Otto in the first place and now occupies a seat at the big table. Waymo says he stole 14,000 confidential documents from Google before departing, including schematics of a circuit board, files regarding radar and LIDAR technology.

According to a Medium post, Waymo says they discovered that, six weeks before his resignation, Levandowski downloaded all these highly confidential files and proprietary design files. In order to do this, Levandowski searched for and installed specialized software on his company-issued laptop which he then used to download 9.7 GB of files, trade secrets, blueprints, design files and testing documentation. An external drive was then connected to the laptop to copy all the files before the company laptop was wiped and reformatted in an attempt to cover his tracks.

Additional highly confidential information about the LIDAR technology, including supplier lists, manufacturing details and more, were later downloaded by other former Waymo employees, all working for either Uber or Otto directly.

One CC to end them all

Aside from the poor job on hiding his tracks, it seems that Waymo was alerted about the theft after a mistakenly CC's email. One Waymo address was copied in an email from one of its LiDAR component vendors, an email that had attached "machine drawings of what purports to be an Uber LiDAR circuit board."

“As this email shows, Otto and Uber are currently building and deploying (or intending to deploy) LiDAR systems (or system components) using Waymo’s trade secret designs. This email also shows that Otto and Uber’s LiDAR systems infringe multiple LiDAR technology patents awarded to Waymo," the company adds.

Waymo is asking the court to block Otto and Uber from using its self-driving technology and to return the allegedly stolen documents. Given all the evidence Waymo claims to have at its disposal, its court success may be guaranteed.