Uber’s bad luck continues. Although in all honesty, we could have seen this one coming from a mile away. Waymo, which earlier filed a lawsuit against Uber for allegedly deploying stolen tecch to develop its own self-driving vehicles, has taken the next logical step. The company has formally filed for an injunction against Uber’s use of the tech.
In case you have not been following the case, here is a summary: A few weeks ago Waymo suddenly filed a lawsuit against Uber claiming that Otto founder Anthony Levandowski (Otto is a self-driving truck startup acquired by Uber) stole technologies while working as a Waymo employee and used it to start his own startup. The same tech was allegedly received by the cab aggregator and deployed in its cars, when it acquired Otto.
The case sparked much interest both because of the stature of the companies involved and also because Google Ventures, a company that also falls under the Alphabet umbrella same as Waymo, is an early investor in Uber.
Along with asking that Uber be prevented from using stolen LiDar tech, Waymo has also demanded fast tracked justice. The company has included three new testimonies in order to expedite the process. The new testimonies are from from Waymo security engineer Gary Brown, Waymo LiDAR tech lead Pierre-Yves Droz and Waymo supply chain operations director Tim Willis.
All of these corroborate Waymo’s earlier statements in which it claims that Ubet was using stolen IP to fuel growth, and offer technical details regarding how Waymo was so sure that the tech being deployed by Uber wasn’t something it developed indigenously.
Uber’s meteoric rise has certainly caused raised eyebrows. It seemed like the company managed to get its self-driving cars up and running on public roads in a matter of months whereas many others who started out along the same time or even earlier, are still struggling.
If Waymo’s injunction is accepted, the company could find itself in some serious trouble though, considering that it has already initiated pilot rides with autonomous cars on public roads in multiple states.
