Google Waymo sagsøger Uber for tyveri af forretningshemmeligheder

Waymo, som er projektnavnet for Googles selvkørende bil, har sagsøgt Uber og Otto for patentkrænkelse. Otto er en startup med selvkørende biler.

I et medium post offentliggjort 23. februar beskylder en tidligere Anthony Levandowski, en tidligere Googleansat, for at have downloadet mere end 14.000 hemmelige designfiler til Waymos hardwaresystemer.

Det 28-sider lange anklageskrift beskriver hvordan Waymos mistanke til Levandowski steg i 2015 og 2016.

Det var først i 2015 at Uber begyndte at udvikle selvkørende køretøjer, hvor Waymo har været i gang siden 2009. I anklageskriftet står der nævnt, at Uber stadig brugte tredjeparts LiDAR-systemer, mens Waymo udviklede deres egen, hvilket gjorde at Waymo var fem års udvikling foran Uber i forhold til selvkørende køretøjer til forbrugere.

Waymo udtaler følgende:

By November 2015, an internet domain name for the new venture had been registered. And by January 2016, Mr. Levandowski had confided in some Waymo colleagues that he planned to “replicate” Waymo’s technology at a Waymo competitor. As Waymo would later learn, Mr. Levandowski went to great lengths to take what he needed to “replicate” Waymo’s technology and then to meet with Uber executives, all while still a Waymo employee.

Ifølge Google hentede Levandowski dataen den 11. december 2015 og kopierede dataen til et SD-kort tre dage senere den 14. december. Den 18. december formatterede Levandowski sin harddisk og mødtes med Uber-folk i San Francisco den 14. januar 2016 og opsagde sin stilling ved Google kort tid efter. Få måneder efter opretter Levandowski firmaet Otto og tiltrækker ingeniør fra Googles Waymo-projekt, som også tager hemmelig data og materialer med sig.

I august 2016 køber Uber Otto for 680 millioner USD, hvilket øger Waymos mistanke.

Waymo skriver videre i deres anklageskrift:

Then, in December 2016, Waymo received evidence suggesting that Otto and Uber were actually using Waymo’s trade secrets and patented LiDAR designs. On December 13, Waymo received an email from one of its LiDAR-component vendors. The email, which a Waymo employee was copied on, was titled OTTO FILES and its recipients included an email alias indicating that the thread was a discussion among members of the vendor’s “Uber” team. Attached to the email was a machine drawing of what purported to be an Otto circuit board (the “Replicated Board”) that bore a striking resemblance to – and shared several unique characteristics with – Waymo’s highly confidential current-generation LiDAR circuit board, the design of which had been downloaded by Mr. Levandowski before his resignation.

En talsmand fra Uber, Chelsea Kohler, udtaler følgende til anklagen:

We take the allegations made against Otto and Uber employees seriously and we will review this matter carefully.

Billede: Google

Kategori: Andet  

Tags: Waymo   Google   Otto   Autonom   Uber