Google goes after Uber in court over self-driving car secrets

Silicon Valley giants seem to be stepping on each other's toes in the race to bring self-driving cars to the road.

Waymo, the autonomous car arm of Alphabet (which owns Google), filed a lawsuit against Uber on Thursday accusing the ride-hailing company of stealing its trade secrets.

In a lengthy Medium post announcing the suit, the company's spokespeople alleged that a former project manager, Anthony Levandowski, stole thousands of proprietary files before leaving to start his own self-driving car startup, Otto.

Otto, which Uber bought last fall, then used that technology to build a system for detecting vehicle surroundings nearly identical to Waymo's, the company claims.

Waymo said it discovered the resemblance when a supplier inadvertently emailed a blueprint of the circuit board for Uber's laser sensor system.

In a departure from the usual bland corporate PR-speak, the company described its frustration with the ordeal at length. At one point, it even likened the alleged theft to a heist of Coca-Cola's famously well-guarded secret formula.

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"Misappropriating this technology is akin to stealing a secret recipe from a beverage company," the company's spokespeople wrote.

"Hundreds of Waymo engineers have spent thousands of hours, and our company has invested millions of dollars to design a highly specialized and unique LiDAR system."

In a brief statement Thursday evening, an Uber spokesperson said the company would look into the allegations.

"We take the allegations made against Otto and Uber employees seriously and we will review this matter carefully," a spokesperson said.

The spat presents a bit of an awkward situation for the two companies because Google Ventures, another Alphabet wing, is a major Uber investor.

The relationship between the two companies had already strained in recent months as overlapping business interests put them at odds in the market. An Alphabet exec relinquished his seat on Uber's board last August after the other members reportedly shut him and the head of Google Ventures out of multiple meetings.

The suit also comes at a bad time for Uber, which is still reeling from the fallout of a bombshell report of systemic sexual harassment and a massive boycott.

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The move follows a similar lawsuit Tesla filed against a former self-driving car head who allegedly poached employees for a competing venture with the former head of Google's unit.

As businesses elbow one another to snatch up the nascent market for driverless vehicles, it seems competition is getting ugly.

The suit was filed in San Francisco federal court on Thursday.

Updated Thursday, Feb. 23, 7 p.m. EST to include Uber's response.