Google mother company Alphabet has just filed a lawsuit accusing Uber and its self-driving vehicle unit Otto of stealing technology from Waymo, a subsidiary of the Google parent company.
"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," Waymo said in a San Francisco federal court filing.
The suit contends that a Waymo manager took technical data with him when he left to launch a competing venture that went on to become Otto.
"We take the allegations made against Otto and Uber employees seriously and we will review this matter carefully," an Uber spokeswoman said in an email reply to an AFP inquiry.
Waymo called for a trial, and urged the court to order Otto and Uber to stop using patented technology at issue in the case.
Waymo also wanted unspecified damages in what it described in court documents as "an action for trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement, and unfair competition."
Waymo argued that a "calculated theft" of its technology netted Otto a buyout of more than US$ 500 million and enabled Uber to revive a stalled self-driving car program.
California-based ride-sharing service Uber acquired commercial transport-focused tech startup Otto late last year as the company pressed ahead with its pursuit of self-driving technology.
Anthony Levandowski, a co-founder of Otto, a 90-person startup, was put in charge of Uber's efforts to develop self-driving technology for personal driving, delivery and trucking.
Waymo's lawsuit contended that Levandowski in December 2015 downloaded more than 14,000 proprietary files from a highly confidential design server to a laptop.
A week later, and after removing a data storage card, Levandowski reformatted the company laptop in what the suit maintained was an attempt to erase any trace of what happened to the downloaded data.
"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," Waymo said in a San Francisco federal court filing.
The suit contends that a Waymo manager took technical data with him when he left to launch a competing venture that went on to become Otto.
"We take the allegations made against Otto and Uber employees seriously and we will review this matter carefully," an Uber spokeswoman said in an email reply to an AFP inquiry.
Waymo called for a trial, and urged the court to order Otto and Uber to stop using patented technology at issue in the case.
Waymo also wanted unspecified damages in what it described in court documents as "an action for trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement, and unfair competition."
Waymo argued that a "calculated theft" of its technology netted Otto a buyout of more than US$ 500 million and enabled Uber to revive a stalled self-driving car program.
California-based ride-sharing service Uber acquired commercial transport-focused tech startup Otto late last year as the company pressed ahead with its pursuit of self-driving technology.
Anthony Levandowski, a co-founder of Otto, a 90-person startup, was put in charge of Uber's efforts to develop self-driving technology for personal driving, delivery and trucking.
Waymo's lawsuit contended that Levandowski in December 2015 downloaded more than 14,000 proprietary files from a highly confidential design server to a laptop.
A week later, and after removing a data storage card, Levandowski reformatted the company laptop in what the suit maintained was an attempt to erase any trace of what happened to the downloaded data.
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