{"id":5048,"date":"2017-02-28T13:34:51","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T17:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=5048"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:56","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:56","slug":"uber-sued-google-over-self-driving-car-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/uber-sued-google-over-self-driving-car-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"And the hits keep coming: Uber sued by Google for stealing self-driving car tech"},"content":{"rendered":"

On February 23, 2017, Waymo (a subsidiary of Google\u2019s parent company, Alphabet) filed a lawsuit against Uber, claiming that Uber stole technology integral to the development of self-driving cars.\u00a0 This only adds to what has been a disastrous 2017 for Uber in the news.\u00a0 Earlier this year, negative publicity from Uber\u2019s response to a taxi driver strike<\/a> in NYC led to the #DeleteUber<\/a> campaign, and rocked the ride-sharing company.\u00a0 The strike was in response to President Trump\u2019s immigration ban and many customers were upset when Uber kept prices low, seemingly attempting to capture the business generated by the strike.\u00a0 Some were equally displeased with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick\u2019s choice to participate on President Trump\u2019s economic advisory council.\u00a0 The political pressure became so great so quickly that Kalanick stepped down<\/a> from the council.
\nThe dust had hardly settled from the initial #DeleteUber campaign when it was fired up again in response to allegations of sexual harassment<\/a> from inside the company.\u00a0 Susan Fowler<\/a>, previously an Uber engineer, recently went public with information that she was sexually harassed by her manager.\u00a0 Fowler claimed that when she reported the incidents to HR and upper management, she was informed that her supervisor would not be disciplined.\u00a0 Fowler relates, \u201cI was then told that I had to make a choice: (i) I could either go and find another team and then never have to interact with this man again, or (ii) I could stay on the team, but I would have to understand that he would most likely give me a poor performance review when review time came around, and there was nothing they could do about that.\u201d\u00a0 Again, social media erupted and users rushed to delete their Uber apps.\u00a0 Uber responded to the public outcry by issuing an apology<\/a>.
\nMost recently, Uber has found itself not only faced with bad publicity, but with a potentially crushing lawsuit.\u00a0 On February 23, 2017, Waymo filed a 28 page complaint<\/a> against Uber in federal court in the Northern District of California.\u00a0 The complaint accuses Uber of several counts of patent infringement as well as violations of both the California Uniform Trade Secret Act<\/a> and the Defend Trade Secrets Act<\/a>.\u00a0 The DTSA \u201c[f]or the first time . . . authorizes a federal private right of action<\/a> to remedy trade secret misappropriation.\u201d \u00a0Passed in 2016, the DTSA is an amendment to the Economic Espionage Act of 1996<\/a>.
\nThe lawsuit revolves around lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) technology.\u00a0 \u201cLidar is a radar-like system that uses lasers instead of radio waves to build a 3-D image<\/a> of the surrounding landscape.\u201d \u00a0The technology has a variety of uses, from speed measurement<\/a> for law enforcement to large scale topographic mapping<\/a> by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). \u00a0\u201cLidar specialists such as Velodyne Lidar Inc.<\/a> say that, to cut the driver completely and permanently out of the equation, the technology is essential.\u201d
\nWaymo claims that a previous Google employee, Anthony Levandowski<\/a> \u201csecretly downloaded 14,000 files from its\u00a0hardware systems, resigned a month later, and then used the information to launch a self-driving truck startup called Otto.\u201d\u00a0 Shortly thereafter, Uber acquired Otto and hired Levandowski to oversee the project.
\nUber has been testing Otto\u2019s self-driving trucks on the roads for months, potentially in violation of California law<\/a>.\u00a0 Uber has refused to secure a permit that is required by the California DMV to test the vehicles on public roads.\u00a0 This would not be the first time that Uber has run afoul of state permitting procedures, as it was fined almost $11.4 million<\/a> by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission for operating its ride-sharing program without agency approval in 2014.
\nWaymo claims that Otto\u2019s lidar technology is simply too similar to that which Waymo has been developing for years and that \u201cbefore it acquired Otto<\/a>, Uber was \u2018more than five years behind\u2019 in the race to develop reliable autonomous vehicles . . . .\u201d \u00a0Waymo alleges that \u201cLevandowski’s actions were \u2018part of a concerted plan to steal Waymo’s trade secrets and intellectual property,\u2019\u201d and that \u201cMonths before the mass download<\/a> of files, Mr. Levandowski told colleagues that he had plans to \u2018replicate\u2019 Waymo\u2019s technology at a competitor.\u201d
\nThus far, Uber has denied the allegations<\/a>, calling the suit \u201ca \u2018baseless\u2019 ploy to hinder the progress of a competitor.\u201d\u00a0 However, the suit is getting plenty of media attention and is only adding to Uber\u2019s recent barrage of negative press.\u00a0 As phrased by Alex Davies of Wired<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the suit goes to trial, Apple\u2019s legal battle with Samsung<\/a> could wind up looking tame by comparison.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 23, 2017, Waymo (a subsidiary of Google\u2019s parent company, Alphabet) filed a lawsuit against Uber, claiming that Uber stole technology integral to the development of self-driving cars.\u00a0 This only adds to what has been a disastrous 2017 for Uber in the news.\u00a0 Earlier this year, negative publicity from Uber\u2019s response to a taxi …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5049,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7101,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5048\/revisions\/7101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}