
Uber denies Waymo theft claims on grounds it never used custom LiDAR - stingrae
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/07/uber-denies-waymo-theft-claims-on-grounds-it-never-used-custom-lidar/
======
tmh79
So time to clear up what appears to be a few misconceptions on this thread:

The hearing so far has been about Waymo filing a preliminary injunction
against Uber. The scope of the injunction requested was along the lines of
"uber needs to stop building all self driving cars until we're done with this
civil case". What Uber is arguing is "you're [waymo] saying that we stole your
LIDAR, but all of the Lidar tech we use is off the shelf velodyne stuff, which
is super obvious that we didn't steal, we purchased from velodyne, this is not
worthy on an injunction". Waymo then argued that uber was independently
develeoping its own lidar system in parallel with the velodyne stuff it was
using, and it wants to stop development there, and uber rebutted along the
lines of "there are huge material differences between the lidar we're
designing, and the lidar waymo uses, so even if levandowski stole a bunch of
info and has it on his personal computer, its not in our product or our
research pipeline, or servers, so your theft issue with with our boy levy, not
with us, uber the company."

All of the argument so far are around the injunction, the actual trial happens
in october.

------
cobookman
"Uber denies Waymo theft claims on grounds it never used custom LiDAR"

"Uber admitted in court filings today that it still uses commercially-
available LiDAR systems in its self-driving vehicles because its in-house
technology isn’t ready for the road."

Am I reading this right. Uber is saying that they shouldn't be sued as they
haven't used the stolen information in their self driving cars on the road.
However they are not saying if they have used stolen information to make their
own lidar units that are currently in development.

I'm assuming they are doing this so that the injunction only applies to their
custom lidar tech.

~~~
inverse_pi
No, they're also claiming that their LiDAR is "fundamentally different" than
Waymo's.

~~~
wavefunction
How would Uber know they are different implementations unless they knew what
Google's implementation consists of?

~~~
monocasa
Not defending Uber here (it's pretty obvious that they fucked up big time
here), but in these cases it's common to allow counsel (and counsel only) to
look at both companies' IP as part of the discovery process. Counsel then
giving access to information they found in that process would be grounds for
pretty immediate disbarring.

------
gregcohn
I thought the most interesting but unexplained phrase in the piece was
"contrary to paperwork filed with the Nevada DMV".

As in, "Uber also claims that, contrary to paperwork filed with the Nevada
DMV, it has never deployed a custom LiDAR system in any of its cars or trucks
and will not be ready to do so by the time the case is slated to go to trial
in October."

(Edit for formatting.)

~~~
carlosdp
It is explained further down actually:

"But in paperwork filed with Nevada regulators last July, Otto claimed that it
“developed in house and/or currently deployed” a 64-laser LiDAR system in its
autonomous trucks. Uber now says this was an error. “Every single self-driving
car that Uber has put on the road to date uses commercially available LiDAR
sensors from third parties,” Uber wrote in its filing."

~~~
mannykannot
The latest statement, at least the part quoted here, says nothing about the
"developed in-house" clause of the initial paperwork.

------
kcorbitt
There doesn't seem to be any direct evidence against Uber itself so far, which
makes me question why Uber didn't fire Levandowski five minutes after he plead
the fifth and refused to let his personal devices be searched for the stolen
files. It would go a long way towards removing their guilt through
association, and weaken Google's case against Uber (Levandowski seems hosed
either way).

As an outsider, I can only think of one logical reason why they haven't done
this. It seems likely that someone in Uber -- possibly Travis Kalanick himself
-- knew about the IP theft ahead of time and approved the purchase of
Levandowski's company anyway. So if they throw Levandowski under the bus, he
may turn around and testify against Uber proper as part of a plea bargain.
This fits the old law of criminal conspiracies: you _have_ to hang together,
or else you'll all hang separately. :)

------
tmh79
Hypothetical question for the IP lawyers on here:

Lets say we have two companies, evilCorp and goodCorp. goodCorp files a law
suit against against evilCorp alleging that evilCorp stolen trade secrets for
its self driving cars, and they file an injunction against evilCorp for it to
stop developing self driving cars. During the injunction process, it is
discovered that evilCorp has two separate departments, espionage and
development, and the two departments never talk to each other, ever, and thats
a provable fact somehow. The espionage department has in its possession stolen
documents from goodCorp, but the self driving car project in the development
department is very clearly entirely different from what is in those stolen
documents, has its own dev, etc. What happens to evilCorp in the civil case?

~~~
elvinyung
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design)

------
EnFinlay
Wasn't the lawsuit kicked off by Waymo accidentally receiving an attachment
intended for Uber from a manufacturer that looked incredibly similar to their
designs? Isn't that design proof that they were using Waymo's custom LiDAR?

------
Animats
The LIDAR issue is a sideshow. Neither Waymo nor Uber should be developing a
LIDAR; that's what parts suppliers are for. Until recently, the available
LIDAR options sucked, but it's getting better. It will get a lot better when
Continental, the big auto parts manufacturer, turns on production of the flash
LIDAR technology from Advanced Scientific Concepts.[1] That's known to work
well; it just costs too much in small volume. They could probably make those
units in volume now, but it's too soon to turn on the parts factory and make
millions of them. No market volume yet. Or maybe Quantergy, a startup which
says they are "the leading provider of solid state LiDAR sensors" but isn't
shipping, will get their act together.

Waymo only found about about the LIDAR thing by accident. The question is, how
much other technology did Uber get?

[1] [http://www.continental-
corporation.com/www/pressportal_com_e...](http://www.continental-
corporation.com/www/pressportal_com_en/themes/press_releases/3_automotive_group/chassis_safety/press_releases/pr_2017_01_04_umfeldmodell_2_en.html)

~~~
blackguardx
I disagree that they shouldn't be developing LIDAR. It is such a critical
piece of Waymo's implementation that they would be fools not to have a
development program.

Google has more money to invest in this than any part supplier. Why would they
let another company own their destiny?

------
booleanbetrayal
So once the injunction is served (which is looking increasingly likely), what
will the spillover effects look like? I'm assuming Uber valuation tanks at
this point, but how does that propagate?

~~~
holtalanm
i don't know why an injunction would be served if Uber's in-house technology
is significantly different from Waymo's. That, and the fact that Uber is
apparently using 3rd-party hardware on their current self-driving vehicles.

~~~
booleanbetrayal
"Uber also claims that, contrary to paperwork filed with the Nevada DMV, it
has never deployed a custom LiDAR system in any of its cars or trucks and will
not be ready to do so by the time the case is slated to go to trial in
October."

via [https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/07/ubers-legal-defense-
waym...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/07/ubers-legal-defense-waymo-does-
lidar-better-for-now/) \--

"A Waymo spokesperson told Engadget: "Uber's assertion that they've never
touched the 14,000 stolen files is disingenuous at best, given their refusal
to look in the most obvious place: the computers and devices owned by the head
of their self-driving program. We're asking the court to step in based on
clear evidence that Uber is using, or plans to use, our trade secrets to
develop their LiDAR technology, as seen in both circuit board blueprints and
filings in the State of Nevada."

If they've legally filed with the state of Nevada as using proprietary LiDAR
tech, doesn't that put the nail in the coffin?

As an aside, if it is found that the stolen documents were disseminated
internally, don't they have a near-impossible burden of proof that no trade
secrets were integrated into the braintrust of the company? How is this
typically handled? I imagine it involves rebuilding the division and
dismissing any previous project participants.

~~~
booleanbetrayal
Additional information on Nevada filings --

[https://backchannel.com/how-my-public-records-request-
trigge...](https://backchannel.com/how-my-public-records-request-triggered-
waymos-self-driving-car-lawsuit-1699ff35ac28)

"Otto noted that it had developed an “in-house custom built 64-laser (Class 1)
emitting 6.4 million beams a second at 10Hz.”"

...

"Lidow explained that many lidars today use 32 lasers and 1 or 2 million beams
per second, and that a 64-laser system emitting 6.4 million beams a second
would give superior vertical resolution and quicker refreshes. This would be
better able to capture small, fast objects such as bouncing balls or animals
darting into the road. It would also be technically challenging to build. “But
I don’t think the speed of the system or the number of laser pulses are
definitive in any way to tell you whose system it is,” he said."

While Velodyne has a 64 channel product, I can't find any reference of a
Velodyne system that comes close to that 6.4M beam per second refresh.

------
kregasaurusrex
It's for high profile cases like this that Groklaw was an indispensibile site
for in-depth legal analysis. Are there any sites that offer similar content
like techdirt?

~~~
phonon
Pacer :-)

------
Esau
Isn't this like saying you didn't steal a CD because you never listened to it?

------
bhups
> “Then why did he steal this stuff? That’s the story the jury’s going to want
> to know about,” Judge William Alsup retorted.

I find it alarming that the judge assumes a "guilty until proven innocent"
position. Obviously outsiders like us would take a stance like this, but for a
judge on the bench to operate in that manner sets off all kinds of red flags
for me.

~~~
Boxbot
My (admittedly limited) understanding of the case so far is that neither Uber
nor the former Google employee dispute that the theft did in fact take place.

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
Forgive my ignorance, but can Uber dispute that the theft did in fact take
place if ther former Google employee isn't saying anything? Could they not be
as ignorant as you or I?

~~~
gareim
They could be as ignorant, but the fact that they haven't forced their
employee to disclose anything appears to the judge that they're trying to have
their cake and eat it too.

