{"id":339281,"date":"2017-04-26T04:22:42","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T20:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1481317"},"modified":"2017-04-26T04:22:42","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T20:22:42","slug":"uber-must-turn-over-information-about-its-acquisition-of-otto-to-waymo-court-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/uber-must-turn-over-information-about-its-acquisition-of-otto-to-waymo-court-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo, court rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the center of the legal battle between Google and Uber<\/a> over driverless car technology, has suffered a setback. Levandowski has broadly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights<\/a> against self-incrimination in the case, refusing to answer questions about whether or not he downloaded confidential files from Google before quitting his job at the company to join Uber\u2019s self-driving car team. However, an appeals court has denied his request to extend his Fifth Amendment rights so broadly that Uber could redact documents on Levandowski\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s self-driving unit, Waymo, is suing Uber, claiming that it acquired Levandowski\u2019s company Otto<\/a> as a way to steal Waymo\u2019s secret lidar technology and speed up its efforts to bring the first self-driving car to market. Waymo has claimed that Levandowski signed an agreement with Uber\u2019s lawyers just a few days after quitting his job at Google, requiring Uber to defend him if the company\u2019s acquisition of Otto resulted in a lawsuit. Waymo has accordingly asked Uber to hand over a privilege log with details about Uber\u2019s early legal entanglement with Levandowski.<\/p>\n

But Levandowski opposed the production of an unredacted privilege log, saying that if Uber produced it, it would violate his Fifth Amendment rights. An appeals court disagreed today, ordering Uber to produce the complete log without redactions.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Levandowski argues that he is entitled to relief under the Fifth Amendment because production of the unredacted privilege log could potentially incriminate him. We are not persuaded that the district court erred in its ruling requiring defendants to produce an unredacted privilege log,\u201d the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0order also opens the door for Waymo to request a copy of the due diligence report that Uber commissioned while it was in the process of acquiring Otto. Waymo has claimed that the due diligence report could contain evidence that Uber knew Otto was using stolen technology. Uber, on the other hand, has claimed that none of Waymo\u2019s confidential files were uploaded to an Uber computer and therefore were never used in the development of its lidar system.<\/p>\n

Waymo and Uber declined to comment on the appeals court ruling.<\/p>\n

The two companies are due back in court on May 3, when a judge will decide whether or not to issue a preliminary injunction that could prevent Levandowski from continuing to work on Uber\u2019s self-driving program or even halt Uber\u2019s self-driving efforts altogether until the lawsuit is resolved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the center of the legal battle between Google and Uber over driverless car technology, has suffered a setback. Levandowski has broadly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in the case, refusing to answer questions about whether or not he downloaded confidential files from Google before quitting his job at the company to join… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-339281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}