
Most Waymo Patent Claims Dropped in Autonomous Car Fight with Uber - pfarnsworth
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-07/waymo-drops-most-patent-claims-in-autonomous-car-fight-with-uber
======
mmanfrin
Title feels a little clickbaity, as it was a request from the Judge prior to
going to a Jury:

    
    
      U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco has asked 
      Waymo to narrow its more than 100 trade secrets claims to 
      fewer than 10 to put in front of a jury.

~~~
myth_buster
Uber's response to it is even more baffling!

 _" Waymo’s retreat on three of their four patent claims is yet another sign
that they have overpromised and can’t deliver," Uber said in a statement. "Not
only have they uncovered zero evidence of any of the 14,000 files in question
coming to Uber, they now admit that Uber’s LiDAR design is actually very
different than theirs. Faced with this hard truth, Waymo has resorted to
floating conspiracy theories not rooted in fact, doing everything they can to
put the focus on sensation rather than substance."_

~~~
epmaybe
Is it baffling? They're doing what they can to influence the public (and jury,
as impartial as they will try to make it).

~~~
arkitaip
It is baffling because it does a poor job at influencing. Frankly it sounds
kinda unprofessional and "Uberish".

~~~
YCode
Many said similar things about Trump's rhetoric a year ago, yet here we are.

~~~
freyir
It could be Trump rhetoric, if it were a little less coherent and drew from a
smaller vocabulary.

------
wand3r
Google is going to increase or fully acquire Uber. Uber has virtually no
management in place right now and I could hypothetically see that clearing
being pragmatic for the social reasons, but potentially part of a deal with
Google for business ones. Maybe they will reach a settlement before this goes
to court. This is obviously unfounded speculation but a few other points

whole C suite is pretty much gone

Uber is integrated into Gmaps. Currently running an existing user promo for
$15 if executed through maps.

Whole Uber team has apparently trained on Googles tech already so on boarding
will be easier

It's Googles core competency

They already own a smallish percentage

They seem to be focused on production, key exec was let go from Ford for
wrecking a Frenemy partnership trade of AI / Tech for Ford production
expertise. They have the synergy with Gmaps, much of the AI and prototyping
with Waymo and they can turn around the negative sentiment. They need the
network short term to ramp up whatever their play is for the future.

I can see this being reasonable. Uber is a financial mess with limited upside
if this case goes south and is only attractive to a few buyers. Google,
already being an investor is one of they few Incs with the knowledge and
capital to actually get value from this cash fire.

~~~
joe_the_user
How would Google deal with Uber's massively inflated $69 billion valuation?

Would investors who bought shares be compensated with pennies on the dollar?
Would some investors get more than others?

What motivates people to put in money at these absurd valuations? The hope
that they'll come true just some of the time?

~~~
bduerst
If Uber is like the other unicorn companies, the investors that gave it the
massive valuation have shareholder agreements that allow them to get paid
before everyone else does. Anyone with common shares (e.g. employees, etc.)
would get virtually nothing.

~~~
mi100hael
Would suck big time but also be entirely predictable for employees with
options/golden-handcuffs who end up with nothing.

------
idibidiart
Misleading title. Makes it sound like they were wrong and are backing off. The
patents being dropped are those which Uber is no longer using but was using at
some point in their prototypes. There remains one key patent that Uber is
still using and Alphabet is still suing them for it.

~~~
azylman
Google's spin is that they're dropping them because they're no longer using
them, but the reality is that the judge has told them they're wrong:

> Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court in San Francisco, who is
> overseeing the case, urged the company’s lawyers at a hearing on June 7 to
> drop the patent claims because "you’re going to lose on all these patent
> claims unless you pull some rabbit out of a hat."

~~~
idibidiart
"you’re going to lose on all these patent claims ..." because Uber is no
longer using them.

Waiting to be asked by the judge to drop them is the only valid political
chess move they had. Withdrawing them without being asked would be worse, IMO.
But the reason remains the same: Uber used to have them in their
design/prototypes but they no longer do.

~~~
azylman
The judge asked them to drop all the patent claims, even the one that Google
claims Uber is still using/infringing, which means it's unlikely to be related
to whether or not Uber was or continues to infringe on them and more likely to
be related to the strength of the patents themselves. A lot of patents get
invalidated during cases like these...

~~~
idibidiart
"Likely to ne related to the strength of the patents" means that the patents
have been scrutinized by the court and determined to be invalid. But that is
not the case.

------
Fricken
The trade secrets part of the case supposedly has legs, just not very long
ones given Uber didn't use the trade secrets Levandowski supposedly stole.

When Waymo first levied the case against Uber I was of the unpopular opinion
that it wasn't as strong as it looked. Nonetheless, it ruined Levandowski's
career and counted for about a gallon's worth of gasoline on the fire of
negative public opinion and investor rage against Uber and it's leadership.
Even if Waymo loses in court, it's still a win.

~~~
justicezyx
> it ruined Levandowski's caree

How so? Like saying police ruined a criminal's normal life?...

------
AnimalMuppet
TL;DR: Not much real change. "Most" is "3 out of 4". That's not quite as
dramatic as the headline makes it sound. Also note that the case is primarily
about trade secrets, not patents.

------
perseusprime11
Does anyone know if those 14k files have any evidence linking to Uber's
design? If there is no wrongdoing, Uber should continue to figure out
autonomous cars as a service model.

~~~
moomin
I imagine google think they have, but the truth is, a document saying that
approach X does not work would save anyone who read it a lot of money. And the
only thing you'd see in the final design was that it didn't use X.

------
sillysaurus3
Reformatted for mobile users:

EDIT: The parent edited their comment, so I've removed my reply, as it's no
longer necessary.

This seems like a valuable service, and I'd like to continue doing this, but
perhaps I'll add a disclaimer asking people not to talk about HN in the
replies to minimize noise. If you have questions or concerns about the site,
please email hn@ycombinator.com rather than leaving a comment.

~~~
sctb
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720569](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720569)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Thanks! I don't know whether to keep doing this or not so if you have an
opinion one way or the other, let me know.

The community seems to appreciate it, but on the other hand it adds noise.
Though one benefit is that it nudges users toward using italics for quotes
instead of code blocks.

------
iamleppert
It seems to me, that Waymo/Google has no real interest in their self-driving
car program.

Anthony Levandowski went to Uber because he is interested in furthering self-
driving car technology into practical applications and Uber offered to
actually, really prioritize his project and make his dreams a reality. That's
the only logical explanation of his actions; he thought Uber would be a better
technology and business partner.

Setting aside the legal issues of whether what he did was right or not, I
don't think Google would be the right custodian of this project anyway. For
the greater good of the world, we need self-driving cars to become a reality.

And Google just isn't going to do it. They are invested in self-driving cars
like they are invested in contact lenses, or drones, or robots, or go-playing
AI, and half-dozen other things. Uber was/is a far more logical choice for a
company that is going to be both motivated and pragmatic enough to bring this
technology to market.

Google has been working on it for ages and we have yet to see a serious
attempt at a non-academic implementation.

~~~
pishpash
> Google has been working on it for ages and we have yet to see a serious
> attempt at a non-academic implementation.

I trust Google way more than Uber to do something like this right (i.e. not
kill people), even if it takes "forever."

~~~
gxs
As much as I personally dislike Google, I have to agree with you here.

