{"id":343047,"date":"2017-06-08T03:19:58","date_gmt":"2017-06-07T19:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1500808"},"modified":"2017-06-08T03:19:58","modified_gmt":"2017-06-07T19:19:58","slug":"judge-denies-ubers-request-for-stay-in-waymo-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/judge-denies-ubers-request-for-stay-in-waymo-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge denies Uber\u2019s request for stay in Waymo suit"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The judge in the lawsuit between Uber and Waymo<\/a>, the self-driving car subsidiary of Google\u2019s parent company Alphabet,\u00a0denied Uber\u2019s request for a stay pending its appeal for arbitration. That means the case is still on track to go to trial in early October, as previously planned.<\/p>\n

In court today, District Judge William Alsup<\/a> of the Northern District of California re-affirmed the court date, put a limit on new discovery requests and urged both parties in the case to figure out their differences on that front.<\/p>\n

Finally, Alsup defended his earlier order<\/a> for Uber to do everything in its power to get Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the center of the case, to comply with discovery requests and to return any\u00a0confidential material he may have taken from Waymo before leaving the company.<\/p>\n

Waymo alleges Levandowski stole trade secrets related<\/a> to its autonomous driving technology, which were later used in the creation of his own self-driving truck startup Otto. Because\u00a0Uber acquired Otto<\/a> for nearly $700 million last summer, the implication is that those trade secrets found their way into Uber\u2019s own autonomous driving unit.<\/p>\n

Uber had previously argued \u2014\u00a0unsuccessfully\u00a0<\/a>\u2014 that the lawsuit should head to arbitration due to a clause in Levandowski\u2019s employment contract. It later appealed that decision and was seeking a stay in the case while the appeals process was underway. Alsup\u2019s ruling this morning effectively denied a pause in the proceedings while waiting for an appeals court to hear the case, and also re-affirmed an October 2 court date for the trial to get underway.<\/p>\n

With less than four months between now and the scheduled proceedings, Alsup also urged both parties to limit the scope of the suit, put a limit on discovery requests and move forward in complying with existing requests.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the counsel for Waymo, Alsup also suggested the company severely curtail \u2014 or drop entirely \u2014 the patent claims it\u2019s making as part of the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019re going to lose on all these patent claims unless you pull a rabbit out of a hat,\u201d Alsup said. \u201cYou\u2019re the one who wants the trial date\u2026 You\u2019re the one who should streamline this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Otherwise, he argued, \u201cyou\u2019ll burn up a lot of time and effort for things that will end up as a distraction.\u201d Instead, he suggested Waymo counsel\u00a0<\/span>spend more time and energy trying to obtain the documents Waymo claims were part of the due diligence process in the Uber-Otto acquisition to find out what Uber knew and when.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the flip side, Alsup said Uber\u2019s defense would depend on showing that the alleged trade secrets Waymo has accused Levandowski of stealing were not secrets after all, but part of the public domain and something that any good autonomous engineer would know.<\/p>\n

Much of today\u2019s hearing was focused on the discovery aspect of the case, which Alsup has (for the most part) turned over to\u00a0Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley. Still, Uber counsel argued that the nature of Waymo\u2019s discovery process was onerous, citing 265 requests that it is already trying to respond to, as well as additional follow-ups it expects.<\/p>\n

In response, Alsup once again referred all\u00a0document discovery requests to the magistrate and the special master, and told the parties there should be no more document requests until further notice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, Alsup turned to the topic of Levandowski, specifically the argument that the court\u2019s order compelling Uber to get him to turn over any documents taken from Waymo unconstitutionally violated his fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination.<\/p>\n

Following a court order, Uber threatened Levandowski with termination<\/a> if he did not comply with its investigation and return any Waymo-owned materials to his previous employer. When he failed to comply by Uber\u2019s deadline, the company followed through on its threat<\/a> and fired Levandowski late last month.<\/p>\n

Because of this, Levandowski\u2019s counsel argued that an agent of the government was forcing a private citizen to choose between his Fifth Amendment rights and continued employment.<\/p>\n

After hearing from counsel for Levandowski, Uber and Waymo, Alsup ruled from the bench. The issue was moot, he said, because \u201cUber had its own investigation going and for its own reasons found that Mr. Levandowski should be fired for not complying with that investigation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Alsup implored those in court to consider what kind of mischief would arise if people working at private companies could claim the Fifth Amendment when party to any internal investigation and could remain employed while not complying with those investigations.<\/p>\n

\u201cA\u00a0private employer\u2026 can say to its employee, \u2018Either you comply with this investigation or we can terminate you,\u2019 \u201d Alsup said. As a result, he said he continues to stand behind the previous order and would not change anything about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Featured Image: Bryce Durbin\/TechCrunch<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" The lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, the self-driving car subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet,\u00a0is still on track to go to trial in early October, as the judge in the case denied Uber’s request for a stay pending its appeal for arbitration. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/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-343047","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\/343047","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=343047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}