Photo: BRETT CARLSEN, NYT

Waymo dropped several patent claims against Uber on Friday, but the two companies are still involved in a bitter lawsuit.

Waymo dropped several patent claims against Uber on Friday, but the two companies are still involved in a bitter lawsuit.

Waymo scales back claims against Uber in driverless car dispute

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle business that operates under Googles parent company, dropped several patent claims against Uber on Friday, pulling back some of its major allegations in a bitter lawsuit over driverless technology.

In a federal court filing, Waymo said it was dropping three of its four claims over Uber violating its patents related to light detection and ranging sensor technology, or lidar. Lidar is a vital component in driverless car technology, helping the vehicle detect its surroundings to navigate roads.

The case, an acrimonious battle between Waymo and Uber, spotlights the arms race surrounding autonomous vehicle talent and technology. It is especially significant for the Google unit now Waymo that spent years working on driverless car technology before other tech companies took an interest. But as Waymo searches for a way to make money from self-driving cars, many of its best engineers have left for potential competitors, carrying valuable knowledge of its technology with them.

The case with Uber, the ride-hailing company, began when Waymo filed suit in February, claiming Uber was using intellectual property stolen by one of Googles former project leaders in its driverless vehicles. That set off months of wrangling, eventually leading Uber to fire the former Google project leader, Anthony Levandowski. The case is scheduled for trial in October, with the thrust of it centered on Uber misappropriating Waymos trade secrets.

Waymos dropping of three patent claims against Uber weakens its original argument for bringing the suit. Still, each side called the latest legal move a victory.

Waymo said it agreed to scale back its patent claims because Uber had halted work on a lidar design that violated Waymos patents and is proceeding with a different design. Waymo is permitted to reassert its claims if Uber returns to the design that Waymo challenged. The company said Ubers current lidar design still violates one of its original patents.

We continue to pursue a patent claim against Ubers current generation device and our trade secret claims, which are not at all affected by this stipulated dismissal, Waymo said. We look forward to trial.

Uber said the dropping of the three claims was yet another sign of Waymo overreaching and not delivering on its claims.

Last month, Waymo received a signal from federal court that the patent claims were not its strongest legal argument in the case. Judge William Alsup of U.S. District Court in San Francisco, who is overseeing the case, urged the companys lawyers at a hearing June 7 to drop the patent claims because youre going to lose on all these patent claims unless you pull some rabbit out of a hat.

Uber, meanwhile, has been trying to distance itself from the actions of Levandowski, who joined Uber last year.

Waymo has said that Levandowski worked with Uber to steal proprietary information from Google before joining Uber. Waymo said Uber was aware that Levandowski had stolen files.

Uber said it expressly told Levandowski not to bring any stolen documents to the company or apply any of Waymos intellectual property to Ubers autonomous vehicle efforts. The company said Waymos lawyers have not found the stolen documents in Ubers possession, despite extensive discovery.

The matter has been complicated by Levandowski asserting his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. Uber said it urged him to cooperate with Waymos lawyers and fired him when he continued to refuse.

In a separate filing Friday, Uber said Levandowski, before invoking his Fifth Amendment right, told Travis Kalanick, then Ubers CEO, that he had downloaded the documents from Google because he was worried that he might not receive full payment of a $120 million bonus owed to him. Uber said this indicated that his actions were unrelated to his work at Uber.

Daisuke Wakabayashi is a New York Times writer.

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Waymo scales back claims against Uber in driverless car dispute - SFGate