SAN FRANCISCO Waymo, the self-driving car division of Google-parent Alphabet, is seeking a court orderto stop Uber from using trade secrets, includingthousands ofconfidential files it alleges werestolen by a former Waymo employee.

Waymo is seeking a preliminary injunction against Uber.(Photo: Paul Sancya, Associated Press)

Waymo says a preliminary injunction will "prevent defendants from misappropriating Waymos own technology to cheat and distort competition in this nascent market."

That technology, which Waymo says was developed over thousands of hours by researchers, engineers and designers, includes light detection and rangingtechnology known as LiDARthat helps self-driving cars sense their surroundings.

Uber said it was reviewing the matter and referred USA TODAY to its previous statement on the lawsuit.

"We have reviewed Waymo's claims and determined them to be a baseless attempt to slow down a competitor and we look forward to vigorously defending against them in court," the company said.

At stake for Uber: A preliminary injunction could slow or even temporarily halt development of its self-driving car technology.

Waymo sued Uber last month, alleging that former Waymo employeeAnthony Levandowski secretlydownloaded more than 14,000 confidentialfiles shortly before he resignedin January 2016.

Levandowskifounded self-driving-truck startup Otto, which was acquired by Uber in August 2016 for $680 million. Levandowski now leads Ubers self-driving-car division.

Related: It's a 50,000 pound semi. And now it's self driving

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Waymo seeks court order against Uber over self-driving car technology - USA TODAY