Google hit with class-action lawsuit over AI data scraping; Reuters, July 11, 2023

Blake Brittain, Reuters ; Google hit with class-action lawsuit over AI data scraping

"Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O) was accused in a proposed class action lawsuit on Tuesday of misusing vast amounts of personal information and copyrighted material to train its artificial intelligence systems.

The complaint, filed in San Francisco federal court by eight individuals seeking to represent millions of internet users and copyright holders, said Google's unauthorized scraping of data from websites violated their privacy and property rights."

Waymo Drops Most Patent Claims in Car Tech Fight With Uber; Bloomberg, July 7, 2017

Eric Newcomer, Bloomberg; Waymo Drops Most Patent Claims in Car Tech Fight With Uber

"Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car division, dropped three of four patent-infringement claims in its lawsuit against Uber Technologies Inc. over the startup’s autonomous vehicle program.

Waymo’s decision to include patent claims in its complaint against Uber was a surprise move for Google parent Alphabet, which normally prides itself on limiting patent fights. The bulk of Waymo’s case is not over patents, but trade secrets."

Google Just Dropped Some of Its Patent Claims Against Uber; Gizmodo, May 17, 2017

Kate Conger, Gizmodo; 

Google Just Dropped Some of Its Patent Claims Against Uber

"Waymo quietly dropped several of the patent claims in its explosive lawsuit against Uber last night, admitting in a new court filing that although it stands behind its allegations of trade secret theft and may pursue new patent claims later, it isn’t moving forward with its current patent infringement claims against one of Uber’s lidar devices."

U.S. Judge Demands Uber Return Downloaded Documents to Waymo; New York Times, May 15, 2017

Reuters via New York Times; 

U.S. Judge Demands Uber Return Downloaded Documents to Waymo

"A U.S. judge ordered Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] to promptly return any files that had been downloaded and taken from Alphabet Inc's Waymo self-driving car unit but said the ride-services company could continue work on its autonomous car technology.

The latest court ruling in a high-profile trade secrets case from U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco, made public on Monday, granted a partial injunction against Uber, which Waymo has accused of using stolen information to accelerate the building of its autonomous cars.

Alsup said in the ruling that Uber "likely knew" or should have known that the former Waymo engineer, Anthony Levandowski, who now works at Uber, took Waymo materials.

The case hinges on more than 14,000 confidential files that Waymo alleges Levandowski stole before he left the company."

Google accuses a former top engineer of stealing trade secrets and taking them to Uber; Washington Post, February 23, 2017

Brian Fung, Washington Post; Google accuses a former top engineer of stealing trade secrets and taking them to Uber

"Google is suing Uber and alleging that a former employee engaged in a “concerted plan” to steal trade secrets related to the search giant's self-driving car technology.

In a blog post Thursday, Google's self-driving car subsidiary, Waymo, said that a former top executive who later went to work for Uber illegally downloaded troves of proprietary data onto an external hard drive before taking the information to his new employer."