The problem isn't the technical side of things, it's the legal side. If Uber loses this they probably won't be able to hire from Google, they will have to do "

The problem isn't the technical side of things, it's the legal side. If Uber loses this they probably won't be able to hire from Google, they will have to do "clean room" implementations, and this will all have to be done on the up and up with documentation and proof that whatever product they come up with was entirely started after the ruling with no use of anything that could have come from Google or Waymo. Not only will that all be a huge expense, it will be practically impossible to compete with those barriers constantly looming over the R&D team, not to mention all the extra legal red tape. That is the crushing blow, not that they can't use LiDAR