google's car division 'waymo' is suing uber for stealing its self-driving secrets

‘waymo,’ if you haven’t hear of it, is the self-driving car division of alphabet, the parent company of google. in what seems to be an intriguing case of industry espionage, the firm has filed a federal civil suit against ubiquitous ride sharing app uber for stealing vital secrets behind the company’s self-driving technology. 

waymo is the self-driving car division of alphabet, parent company of google
image courtesy of waymo

the secrets in question have to do with waymo’s use of LiDAR, the technology which effectively allows the cars to ‘see’ the world around them by shooting out, bouncing and receiving millions of lazers: ‘while waymo developed its custom LiDAR systems with sustained effort over many years, defendants leveraged stolen information to shortcut the process and purportedly build a comparable LiDAR system in only nine months,’ wrote waymo in its complaint. 

alphabet is now accusing anthony levandowski, a former waymo manager, of accessing and downloading 14,000 files using dedicated software and copying them for use elsewhere. the laptop was allegedly then wiped and reformatted. 

waymo believes uber may have used stolen information about its LiDAR technology
image courtesy of waymo

levandowski — now an employee of uber — went on to create ‘otto’ a self-driving truck startup. ‘in december 2015, mr. levandowski specifically searched for and then installed specialized software onto his company-issued laptop in order to access the server that stores these particular files,’ says waymo. ‘once mr. levandowski accessed this server, he downloaded the 14,000 files, representing approximately 9.7 GB of highly confidential data. then he attached an external drive to the laptop for a period of eight hours.’

waymo were apparently tipped off after one of their employees was inadvertently copied into an email thread intended for otto staff that included LiDAR plans that, for waymo, were more than a little familiar. 

alphabet is now accusing levandowski of accessing and downloading 14,000 highly confidential files
image courtesy of uber

LiDAR technology allows self driving cars to ‘see’ the world around them by sending and receiving lasers
image courtesy of waymo