Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies
United States District Court for the Northern District of California
2017 WL 2123560 (2017)

- Written by Rich Walter, JD
Facts
Waymo LLC (plaintiff) sued Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber) and Anthony Levandowski (defendants) in federal district court, alleging that they misappropriated Waymo trade secrets relating to Waymo’s work on so-called LiDAR, a key device used in the experimental self-driving cars that both companies were racing to develop. Waymo’s strong but not airtight preliminary evidence made a persuasive case that (1) Levandowski, a former key Waymo employee, stole encrypted Waymo data pertaining to LiDAR and then quit Waymo under suspicious circumstances; (2) Uber spent heavily to lure Levandowski away from Waymo, knowing that Levandowski had the stolen data and suspecting that some of the data contained LiDAR information that Uber could not easily ascertain on its own; and (3) Levandowski used the stolen Waymo data in his new position as head of Uber’s LiDAR program. Waymo petitioned for a broad preliminary injunction, which effectively would drive Uber’s LiDAR development offtrack.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Alsup, J.)
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