Last month, a former Google engineer was charged with theft of self-driving car tech Google. He did so shortly before he joined Uber’s efforts in the race to build robotic vehicles.
The US attorney’s office in San Jose, California filed the charges in an apparent spinoff from the original lawsuit filed by Waymo based on the case on Google that is a pioneer in self-driving cars in 2017. Last year, Uber agreed to paying a sum of $245 million to settle the case but the judge hearing the case made a surprising recommendation to start a criminal probe after concluding that a theft may have happened.
A forerunner in robotic cars, Anthony Levandowski, was charged with 33 counts of trade secrets theft. Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or in his case, $8.25m if convicted of all counts.
One of his attorneys, Miles Ehrlich, maintains his innocence and reads a statement outside the courthouse.
He didn’t steal anything, from anyone. This case rehashes claims already discredited in a civil case that settled more than a year.
The probe is still ongoing, said the prosecutors, but won’t confirm if Uber and Tarvis Kalanick, former CEO are targeted. They did say that all three Google, Waymo and Uber are cooperating in the investigation. While Uber wasn’t charged in the indictment, it won’t help the company as it seeks to recover from multiple scandals after removing Kalanick a few years ago.
Levandowski is accused of stealing years’ worth of confidential data, which prosecutors say is the the crown jewel of the Waymo spinoff. That information includes breakthroughs in lidar, a crucial piece of tech that allows self-driving cars to detect their surroundings.
During the main trial Kalanick admitted that his company needed to produce self-driving cars if it wanted to keep its early lead as the world’s largest ride-hailing service, but he denied that he ever stooped to stealing information from Google, whom he viewed as an ally until Uber thought that Google intended to introduce its ride-hailing service made up entirely of its robotic vehicles.
Kalanick did admit that his desire to launch a fleet of self-driving cars for Uber made him poach Levandowski in 2015, who at that time was at Google. In early 2016, Levandowski left to give more time to Otto, a self-driving truck company he launched with another Google employee, Lior Ron, who also left. Uber acquired Otto later in 2016 for $680m.
Waymo, which spun off from Google in 2016, says that over 14,000 documents related to trade secrets were downloaded by Levandowski before he left for Otto. Uber denies any knowledge of the theft but fired Levandowski after he pleaded his constitutional right against self-incrimination leading up to the trial. Levandowski’s lawyers in a statement saying that he downloaded that information as an authorized Google employee and never shared those files with Uber or any other company.
Stole or Sold?
I know right. This article is so poorly written with so many mistakes.