Waymo, the Alphabet self-driving unit spun out of Google in late 2016, sued Uber in the Northern District of California in February 2017 alleging that former technical lead Anthony Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 files relating to Google's autonomous-vehicle program shortly before resigning to found the self-driving trucking startup Otto, which Uber acquired in August 2016. Waymo originally pursued both trade-secret and patent claims, but the patent counts were dropped, leaving eight trade secrets at trial, most relating to LIDAR circuit-board designs that Waymo said Uber used to shortcut development of a comparable system in roughly nine months. The dispute settled on February 9, 2018, only five days into trial, when Uber agreed to give Waymo 0.34% of its equity, valued at approximately $244.8 million at Uber's Series G-1 $72 billion valuation, and accepted an injunction barring use of Waymo's confidential information in its autonomous-vehicle stack. Waymo had earlier rejected Uber's pretrial position and itself sought a $500 million equity settlement plus a non-use agreement. A separate Google arbitration against Levandowski produced a $179 million award that pushed him into bankruptcy in March 2020. The case became the defining early test of the Defend Trade Secrets Act in the autonomous-vehicle industry.

Sources

• -https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/waymo-v-uber-surprise-settlement-five-days-into-trial
• -https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/04/anthony-levandowski-sentenced-to-18-months-in-prison-as-new-4b-lawsuit-against-uber-is-filed/