Self-Driving to Federal Prison: The Trade Secret Theft Saga of Anthony Levandowski Continues; Lexology, August 13, 2020

Seyfarth Shaw LLP - Robert Milligan and Darren W. Dummit; Self-Driving to Federal Prison: The Trade Secret Theft Saga of Anthony Levandowski Continues

"Judge Aslup, while steadfastly respectful of Levandowski as a good person and as a brilliant man who the world would learn a lot listening to, nevertheless found prison time to be the best available deterrent to engineers and employees privy to trade secrets worth billions of dollars to competitors: “You’re giving the green light to every future engineer to steal trade secrets,” he told Levandowski’s attorneys. “Prison time is the answer to that.” To further underscore the importance of deterring similar behavior in the high stakes tech world, Judge Aslup required Levandowski to give the aforementioned public speeches describing how he went to prison."

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."