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Judge orders Uber not to use technology taken from Waymo

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

#61

Post by kbenson »

rotflmao wrote: post #49
techinformed56 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prin…

This. Make some company out to be the boogeyman du jour, then tell that lie often enough until most people believe it and it has spread all the way around the world with no chance of the truth catching up. It's bullshit, and I'm amazed that so many HNers that typically express healthy skepticism fall for it.

While I agree there is a bias in the media regarding Uber, that didn't form in a vacuum. There have been numerous fairly bad missteps from the company. I think it's less a case of the media steering the public as is is the media conforming to public opinion in some cases and showing the public what it expects, since the public is getting a fairly bad impression of Uber, and that's not entirely because of how the media has presented the stories.

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

#62

Post by mabbo »

golfer wrote: post #9
golfer wrote: post #6

Link to the full injunction text: https://www.scribd.com/document/348409551/Waymo-Uber-Injunct...

Waymo is going to be able to inspect Uber's LIDAR and get additional expedited discovery: "Waymo is hereby granted further expedited discovery in aid of possible further provisional relief. Subject to the protective order, and upon reasonable notice, Waymo’s counsel and one expert may inspect any and all aspects of defendants’ ongoing work involving LiDAR — including, without limitation,schematics, work orders, sourc…

Waymo is further granted the right to pull down the defendants' pants, and point and laugh at their genitals.

I mean, seriously, they've just been granted a shit load of access to their biggest competitors secrets. Pray they don't abuse that...

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

#64

Post by fudged71 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #60
dpiers wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"3 pages available to preview" Man I hate Scribd. Why does anyone use it? No, I do not want to download your app to read a PDF, and I don't understand why CNBC published it through your service.

I don't get it either. CNBC has webservers and presumably some sort of in-house or external CDN. Why host on Scribd?

Embedding

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

#65

Post by joshuamorton »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #23
jforman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doc…

(Disclosure: I work at google)

You're ignoring a big part of this though: Waymo is given expedited discovery and is allowed to look at Uber's hardware. The injunction says that Uber cannot use Levandowski or any of the work he brought, and so Google['s expert] is allowed to look at Uber's hardware and make sure that none of it is based on the stolen documents.

On the assumption that waymo's claims are true (ie. Uber is basing their work on stolen proprietary designs), this is a major blow to Uber, since they would need to redesign their lidar hardware from the ground up.

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

#66

Post by pfarnsworth »

manyoso wrote: post #55
pfarnsworth wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It's only good if they find something, which to me is doubtful given the fact they didn't find something already, and given the fact that the judge didn't issue a single injunction against Uber for trade secrets. As far as I can tell from reading the injunction, there wasn't a single case of a trade secret from those documents making its way into Uber's technology. The fact that none of the technology mad…

It isn't just the order to return the documents. Uber is compelled by June 23rd for a complete and chronological record of everyone at Uber or on behalf of Uber who discussed LIDAR with Anthony and what they talked about. They have to question all of these people about knowledge about those 14,000 files and contents. Under oath. How many employees do you think that is? How many people? If Anthony discussed these 14,0…

You're presuming that they will find something. I'm presuming they won't. None of the technology made it into Uber's Lidar design, and already no evidence was found that a single document made its way into Uber's servers. Remember, they already went through a round of discovery and they found nothing. The idea that Levandowski would be telling people "Well, from Google's documents, I remember x y z" sounds awfully ridiculous.

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

#67

Post by pfarnsworth »

joshuamorton wrote: post #65
pfarnsworth wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doc…

(Disclosure: I work at google) You're ignoring a big part of this though: Waymo is given expedited discovery and is allowed to look at Uber's hardware. The injunction says that Uber cannot use Levandowski or any of the work he brought, and so Google['s expert] is allowed to look at Uber's hardware and make sure that none of it is based on the stolen documents. On the assumption that waymo's claims are true (ie. Uber…

Read the injunction. They already went through the design. The judge didn't issue an injunction against using or even continuing development on Uber's Lidar. What more do you expect to find?

If Waymo found a design during expedited discovery that is different from what they submitted to the judge, then I assume that is perjury and obviously needs to be punished to the full extent of the law. I doubt this will happen because everyone knows what's at stake here.

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

#68

Post by techinformed56 »

kbenson wrote: post #61
rotflmao wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Make some company out to be the boogeyman du jour, then tell that lie often enough until most people believe it and it has spread all the way around the world with no chance of the truth catching up. It's bullshit, and I'm amazed that so many HNers that typically express healthy skepticism fall for it.

While I agree there is a bias in the media regarding Uber, that didn't form in a vacuum. There have been numerous fairly bad missteps from the company. I think it's less a case of the media steering the public as is is the media conforming to public opinion in some cases and showing the public what it expects, since the public is getting a fairly bad impression of Uber, and that's not entirely because of how the medi…

Fair enough! But what do you say of this article in NYT today on this ruling? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/technology/uber-self-driv...

Selectively quoting only stuff about Engineer and not quoting anything on actual injunction (which is a win for uber) seems like steering towards a negative narrative against Uber.

Again we can dislike Uber's policies etc. But journalist also needs to lay out facts as they are. Not actually try to steer the argument in one direction.

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

#69

Post by [deleted] »

eddieplan9 wrote: post #44
enraged_camel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>It presumes Uber took technology from Waymo, which the judge rules against FTFA: "Judge William Alsup in San Francisco says in the ruling that Waymo has shown “compelling evidence” that a former star engineer named Anthony Levandowski downloaded confidential files before leaving Waymo. The Judge also says evidence shows that before he left Waymo, Levandowski and Uber planned for Uber to acquire a company formed by…

And you can reasonably draw the conclusion that is a plot for stealing technology? It's perfectly reasonable to tell someone that, go make an MVP and we will acquire it.

[deleted]

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

#70

Post by dlgeek »

mabbo wrote: post #62
golfer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is going to be able to inspect Uber's LIDAR and get additional expedited discovery: "Waymo is hereby granted further expedited discovery in aid of possible further provisional relief. Subject to the protective order, and upon reasonable notice, Waymo’s counsel and one expert may inspect any and all aspects of defendants’ ongoing work involving LiDAR — including, without limitation,schematics, work orders, sourc…

Waymo is further granted the right to pull down the defendants' pants, and point and laugh at their genitals. I mean, seriously, they've just been granted a shit load of access to their biggest competitors secrets. Pray they don't abuse that...

Doesn't work that way. When they say "Waymo", they really mean "Waymo's attorney's and hired independent expert(s)". The attorney's get to see the stuff as "Attorney's Eyes Only" (AEO) and then report back summaries to their clients. They have an ethical obligation not to disclose the full details.
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