Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

seattletimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 134 posts

Re: Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

#21

Post by swang »

rotflmao wrote: post #13

Wow, this article is so far off the ruling. Alsup found the patent infringement cases meritless and said Waymo's trade secret claims are an overreach and that Waymo is trying to claim ownership over general principles and approaches in the field. Uber will be allowed to keep working on the SDCs and on LIDAR. Only strikes against Uber is that Levandowski can't work on LIDAR, which Uber already took action on before th…

1. why are you posting on a new account? it is obvious by your edit that you post regularly on here.

2. the article has mostly the same exact info you've posted. what "extreme media bias" are you talking about?

3. you write that their trade secret claims are an "overreach" yet that is only half the story. the judge thought most of the claims were weak, but that there was sufficient evidence to issue the injunction. so there were valid trade secret claims.

> Uber likely knew or at least should have known that Levandowski had taken and retained possession of Waymo’s confidential files. Waymo has also sufficiently shown, for purposes of the instant motion only, that the 14,000-plus purloined files likelycontain at least some trade secrets, and that some provisional relief is warranted while this case progresses toward trial.

So why don't you reveal yourself and explain why you are so pro-Uber? Because it seems likely you have something to hide.

Re: Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

#22

Post by abhi3 »

mediocrejoker wrote: post #14
abhi3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violating a judgment would invite contempt proceedings, which means huge fines for Uber and possible prison for all involved senior executives.

Sure, theoretically they are required to follow this and the consequences for not doing so are dire. In practice, however, is there any way for the judge to know if Uber is complying, or does this essentially rely on the honor system?

Alphabet could complain or there could be a whistleblower

Re: Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

#23

Post by pfarnsworth »

jforman wrote: post #18
rotflmao wrote: post #13

Wow, this article is so far off the ruling. Alsup found the patent infringement cases meritless and said Waymo's trade secret claims are an overreach and that Waymo is trying to claim ownership over general principles and approaches in the field. Uber will be allowed to keep working on the SDCs and on LIDAR. Only strikes against Uber is that Levandowski can't work on LIDAR, which Uber already took action on before th…

I find your analysis to be incorrect. To avoid needless bickering about it, here are the first few paragraphs of the ruling, which people can derive their own conclusions from: "By way of summary, this order finds plaintiff Waymo LLC has shown compellingevidence that its former star engineer, Anthony Levandowski, downloaded over 14,000confidential files from Waymo immediately before leaving his employment there. The…

You either didn't read the injunction carefully, or you didn't understand it. It's a pretty huge win for Uber.

They don't need to stop working on self-driving cars at all. They just need to ensure Levandowski doesn't work on anything Lidar related, which he already doesn't. The only thing that is potentially a problem for Uber is that they need to use whatever methods to compel Levandowski to hand over the 14,000 documents. If he doesn't, I think the judge's ruling means that they need to fire him, which means the $250,000,000 they paid him goes up in smoke.

Re: Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

#24

Post by kbenson »

idbehold wrote: post #16
Dangeranger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying for stolen goods doesn't make them your property.

Uber should start a suit against Levandowski.

Well, that might incite Levandowski to explain just how much Uber knew and the situation was premeditated in an effort to protect himself. Given Google's assertions, if there is any truth to them I think that might open them up to being prosecuted for fraud.

Re: Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

#25

Post by techinformed56 »

employee8000 wrote: post #19
rotflmao wrote: post #13

Wow, this article is so far off the ruling. Alsup found the patent infringement cases meritless and said Waymo's trade secret claims are an overreach and that Waymo is trying to claim ownership over general principles and approaches in the field. Uber will be allowed to keep working on the SDCs and on LIDAR. Only strikes against Uber is that Levandowski can't work on LIDAR, which Uber already took action on before th…

It's only hacker news, don't get so worked up. People are allowed to disagree with you regardless of what you feel your best intentions are. Why do you care what anonymous internet people think?

But I do agree with media bias. The main case was "Injunction". Not a case against Anthony. "Actual case" was Waymo seeking protection for what they claim 121 trade secrets and hence prevent Uber from dong self driving tests. Specifically on that Judge ruled following

“General approaches dictated by well-known principles of physics, however, are not “secret,” since they consist essentially of general engineering principles that are simply part of the intellectual equipment of technical employees,” This clearly shows that Judge believed Waymo over-reached when asking for injuction.

Journalists dont find it saucy. So they are just quoting the parts about Anthony downloading files and skipping the above excerpt.

Re: Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

#26

Post by manyoso »

mediocrejoker wrote: post #14
abhi3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violating a judgment would invite contempt proceedings, which means huge fines for Uber and possible prison for all involved senior executives.

Sure, theoretically they are required to follow this and the consequences for not doing so are dire. In practice, however, is there any way for the judge to know if Uber is complying, or does this essentially rely on the honor system?

Look at the new discovery that the Judge is allowing Waymo. In effect, Waymo gets to look at all internal LIDAR development at Uber to see if they can find their trade secrets.

Re: Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

#27

Post by yazaddaruvala »

idbehold wrote: post #16
Dangeranger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying for stolen goods doesn't make them your property.

Uber should start a suit against Levandowski.

Uber should have uncovered this during due diligence. I'm not sure if they can even sue Levandowski at this point.

Re: Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

#28

Post by [deleted] »

mediocrejoker wrote: post #14
abhi3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violating a judgment would invite contempt proceedings, which means huge fines for Uber and possible prison for all involved senior executives.

Sure, theoretically they are required to follow this and the consequences for not doing so are dire. In practice, however, is there any way for the judge to know if Uber is complying, or does this essentially rely on the honor system?

[deleted]

Re: Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

#29

Post by manyoso »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #15

Some highlights from the injunction: 1. "Waymo’s patent theories are too weak to support any provisional relief." 2. "By contrast, the trade secrets case presented by Waymo does warrant provisional relief." 3. "Moreover, it has become clear that Waymo has both overreached in defining its trade secrets and made moving targets out of its asserted trade secrets to evade defensive arguments. Under these circumstances and…

I think Waymo laywers are very happy with the expedited discovery ruling and the order that Uber must make every effort to compel the return of the 14,000 files.

This might not have been the bombshell ruling against Uber that they were hoping for, but it sets up that bombshell ruling if they can actually find the evidence with this new discovery.

Re: Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

#30

Post by dragonwriter »

delegate wrote: post #4

Didn't Uber pay like $680,000,000 for this technology ?

It didn't pay the owner of the technology $680,000,000; if I pay some guy on the street for your house, it doesn't give me the right to sleep there if he doesn't have the right to dispose of your property, no matter how much I pay.
Post reply on HN