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Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

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Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#31
post #22

Where's the district attorney? If someone is claiming the 5th because he might be incriminated that seems like pretty strong probable cause for a criminal investigation.

There's nothing wrong or shady about claiming the 5th. It's an important legal protection. Why would you seek to diminish or undermine something that might one day protect you?

In civil cases you're allowed to draw adverse inferences.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_inference

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#32
post #22

Where's the district attorney? If someone is claiming the 5th because he might be incriminated that seems like pretty strong probable cause for a criminal investigation.

There's nothing wrong or shady about claiming the 5th. It's an important legal protection. Why would you seek to diminish or undermine something that might one day protect you?

There's a pretty big difference between your fifth amendment rights in civil cases vs. criminal cases. California extends more protections than many states in civil cases, but in many places it can absolutely be used against you in adverse inferences..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#34
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you on Slashdot when SCO was ongoing? If not, this is what a corporate titan proxy war looks like in the news cycle. And it's objectively defensible. The outcome of this lawsuit will shape what an incredibly important future technology looks like and who controls it.

Man, I miss Groklaw. I would love to have a Groklaw-equivalent following this trial. I wonder if folks could, like, crowdsource a salary for PJ to cover a new trial?

I'd stopped reading by then, but apparently she stopped posting in 2013 after Lavabit.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175

"[...] So. There we are. The foundation of Groklaw is over. I can't do Groklaw without your input. I was never exaggerating about that when we won awards. It really was a collaborative effort, and there is now no private way, evidently, to collaborate.

I'm really sorry that it's so. I loved doing Groklaw, and I believe we really made a significant contribution. But even that turns out to be less than we thought, or less than I hoped for, anyway. My hope was always to show you that there is beauty and safety in the rule of law, that civilization actually depends on it. How quaint.

[...]

My personal decision is to get off of the Internet to the degree it's possible. I'm just an ordinary person. But I really know, after all my research and some serious thinking things through, that I can't stay online personally without losing my humanness, now that I know that ensuring privacy online is impossible. I find myself unable to write. I've always been a private person. That's why I never wanted to be a celebrity and why I fought hard to maintain both my privacy and yours."

And I can't imagine that Snowden or the other NSA leaks have made her feel safer about being a public figure.

It seems quaint now, reading her expectations and worries, but it's honestly infuriating that in less than a decade we've gone from an expectation of net privacy to haggard indifference at government's best efforts to engineer electronic panopticon.

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#35
post #22

Where's the district attorney? If someone is claiming the 5th because he might be incriminated that seems like pretty strong probable cause for a criminal investigation.

That's not how the 5th amendment works. It's not a flag you raise to say "nah nah, I'm not gonna tell you!" for the purpose of attracting a criminal lawsuit.

That being said, "where there's smoke there's fire"... but pleading the 5th isn't always the drama we see in Law and Order and Making a Murderer - often individuals just don't want to be misconstrued and prosecuted for saying something and their words being taken out of context.

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#36

Finally scrappy guileless startup Google can stick it to the bloated megacorp Uber /s

I think you got the roles mixed up... Google is the megacorp in this and Uber is scrappy startup.

Uber is anything but scrappy.

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#37

Finally scrappy guileless startup Google can stick it to the bloated megacorp Uber /s

Uber is worth 60 billion dollars. It is 2megacorps fighting each other.

Honest question, I have little VC expertise. Are these valuations relatively legit? Do the people with money at stake have undue influence on the number?

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#38
post #20

I assume that Otto execs indemnified Uber with respect to the intellectual property, given that it was a primary value in the acquisition. If so, Uber can claw back the $680M they spent. If not, it would be the worst IP miss since Ebay acquired Skype for $2 Billion, only to find out that they didn't own Skype's IP or have access to the source code [0]. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/new-lawsuit-brings-clarity.…

It's basically a boilerplate provision in asset purchases, Merger/aquisition, assignments, licensing agreements, etc...

However, Uber's behavior is so open and notorious in terms of disregarding policy/rules/regulations/laws that it really wouldn't surprise me that if there is bad behavior here, then evidence exist showing Uber knew or should have known; therefore, if that is the case then even with indemnification, warranties and guarantees in any and all Agreements concerning IP, Uber could be liable.

Still unless that smoking gun evidence is found or some evidence of spoilation to shift the burden, it is a high legal standard to use past bad behaviors as evidence of bad behavior here, unless there is a clear pattern. As easy as it is to demonstrate past bad behavior can it be demonstrated that have knowingly/intentionally/negligently violated IP of its competitors?

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