Skip to main content

Angry Judge Blasts Uber in Waymo Trade-Secrets Case.

Uber's lawyers can't be trusted, an angry federal judge said Tuesday as he lambasted the ride-hailing giant for withholding from him a document full of explosive allegations amid proceedings for Waymo's trade-secrets lawsuit against Uber, new reports said.

"I can no longer trust the words of the lawyers for Uber in this case," Judge William Alsup said in Northern California U.S. District Court, according to the New York Times.

The document was a heavily redacted letter from lawyers for Uber's former global-intelligence manager Richard Jacobs, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Google's self-driving-car spinoff Waymo sued Uber in February, alleging a former Waymo executive stole trade secrets and brought them to Uber, which allegedly used them for its own self-driving-car program.

Read out in court, the letter said Jacobs knew that Uber had a team whose job was to "steal trade secrets at least from Waymo in the United States," according to the Chronicle report Tuesday, which described Alsup as "visibly angry" during the hearing.

"My court order said stuff like that had to be produced," Alsup said, according to the Chronicle. "It was withheld from me."

However, Jacobs, testifying Tuesday on Alsup's orders, said he didn't stand by that statement in the 37-page letter, which he said he'd signed in a rush without seeing that part.

Uber denies the claims and says it hasn't used Waymo technology.

Jacobs testified that he didn't believe his work for Uber's secretive former Strategic Services Group was "patently illegal." But, he said, he had "questions about the ethics of it" and "it felt overly aggressive and invasive," Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

"None of the testimony today changes the merits of the case," an Uber spokeswoman told this news organization Tuesday. "Jacobs himself said on the stand today that he was not aware of any Waymo trade secrets being stolen."

The Uber spokeswoman also emailed a statement that Uber issued Monday about the impending trial: "Uber has been waiting for its day in court for quite some time now. We're keen to have a jury finally hear this case on its merits."

The judge also brought up "a hidden system of messaging at Uber" that he said was potentially criminal, according to Bloomberg.

"He described an 'invisible system, not part of the regular server system' that deletes messages almost instantaneously, after a small delay," Bloomberg reported.

Alsup granted Waymo's request to delay the start of the trial, for which jury selection had been scheduled to begin Wednesday. Waymo argued that it needed more time because, it claimed, Uber had hidden the letter.

"If even half of what is in that letter is true, it would be an injustice for Waymo to go to trial," Alsup said, according to the New York Times.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Windows 10 now on 600 million machines.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told shareholders that Windows 10 has now passed 600 million monthly active users, picking up 100 million since May of this year. This number counts all Windows 10 devices used over a 28-day period. While most of these will be PCs, there are other things in the mix there: a few million Xbox Ones, a few million Windows 10 Mobile phones, and special hardware like the HoloLens and Surface Hub. The exact mix between these categories isn't known, because Microsoft doesn't say. The company's original ambition (and sales pitch to developers) was to have one billion systems running Windows 10 within about three years of the operating system's launch. In July last year, the company acknowledged that it won't hit that target—the original plan called for  50 million or more phone sales a year , which the retreat from the phone market has made impossible. But at the current rate it should still be on track for somewhere in excess of 700 million use...

WZoneLite – A Pretty Cool WooCommerce Amazon Affiliate Plugin .

Everyone wants to make a million dollars by being a blogger. The promise of riches and internet fame is a big draw to doing it for a lot of people, and I’m sorry to say that the reality of being a blogger (even a professional blogger!) is not quite…as financially lucrative as all that. But that’s not to say that it  can’t be –one of the best ways to start your empire is with an Amazon affiliate plugin. For me, the Amazon Associates program has been one of the biggest earners for me over the years. Not only are there CPM ads like Google Adsense (you know, the normal banner ads we all love to hate), but any time someone clicks a link from your site, you get a percentage of  anything  they buy while the token from your site lasts in their browser. If they buy a song, you get a few cents. If they buy a new MacBook Pro and iPhone? You get…a lot more cents. With that in mind, WZoneLite is a  pretty cool WooCommerce Amazon affiliate plugin that syncs everything together s...

Mayweather's Marriage Proposal -- I'll Love You Forever ... But Your Attitude Sucks!

It's what every little girl dreams of ... a marriage proposal over text message ... complete with crazy Hollywood bribes and a demand that you change your crappy attitude, stat.  And that's exactly what Floyd Mayweather fired off to Shantel Jackson back in April '14 ... according to new court docs obtained by TMZ Sports.  Jackson put the proposal on display in new legal papers filed in her nuclear war with her ex-fiancee ... which shows how Floyd tried to convince Shantel into getting engaged for a 2nd time.  "This is what I offer to you. Let's get married move in together you can go back in forth to L.A and stay at the condo." "I promise I will get you in 3 A list movies this year and I'm willing to go to counseling to make us work and you can get the stuff you want and I'm willing to change but I need you to have a better attitude." How romantic, right?! Shantel says she shot down the offer (shocker) ... and included several t...