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I find your analysis to be incorrect. To avoid needless bickering about it, here are the first few paragraphs of the ruling, which people can derive their own

I find your analysis to be incorrect. To avoid needless bickering about it, here are the first few paragraphs of the ruling, which people can derive their own conclusions from: "By way of summary, this order finds plaintiff Waymo LLC has shown compellingevidence that its former star engineer, Anthony Levandowski, downloaded over 14,000confidential files from Waymo immediately before leaving his employment there. The evidenceshows that, both before and after his departure, Levandowski and defendant Uber Technologies,Inc., planned for Uber to acquire Levandowski’s new companies, defendants Ottomotto LLCand Otto Trucking LLC, and to hire Levandowski as the head of its self-driving car efforts. Moreover, defendants and Levandowski anticipated and took steps to defend against litigationwith Waymo in connection with his move to Uber. Significantly, the evidence indicates that, during the acquisition, Uber likely knew or at least should have known that Levandowski had taken and retained possession of Waymo’s confidential files. Waymo has also sufficientlyshown, for purposes of the instant motion only, that the 14,000-plus purloined files likelycontain at least some trade secrets, and that some provisional relief is warranted while this case progresses toward trial. The scope of relief warranted at this stage, however, is limited byseveral countervailing factors. As nonexhaustive examples, not all of Waymo’s 121 asserted trade secrets actually qualify as such, and few have been traced into the accused technology. Waymo’s patent infringement accusations on this motion also proved meritless. Accordingly,this order grants important but narrowly-tailored provisional relief necessary to equitably balance the parties’ competing needs at this stage. Now follow the details."

pfarnsworth 9y ago
You either didn't read the injunction carefully, or you didn't understand it. It's a pretty huge win for Uber. They don't need to stop working on self-driving cars at all. They just need to ensure Levandowski doesn't work on anything Lidar related, which he already doesn't. The only thing that is potentially a problem for Uber is that they need to use whatever methods to compel Levandowski to hand over the 14,000 documents. If he doesn't, I think the judge's ruling means that they need to fire him, which means the $250,000,000 they paid him goes up in smoke.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  (Disclosure: I work at google) You're ignoring a big part of this though: Waymo is given expedited discovery and is allowed to look at Uber's hardware. The injunction says that Uber cannot use Levandowski or any of the work he brought, and so Google['s expert] is allowed to look at Uber's hardware and make sure that none of it is based on the stolen documents. On the assumption that waymo's claims are true (ie. Uber is basing their work on stolen proprietary designs), this is a major blow to Uber, since they would need to redesign their lidar hardware from the ground up.
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    Read the injunction. They already went through the design. The judge didn't issue an injunction against using or even continuing development on Uber's Lidar. What more do you expect to find? If Waymo found a design during expedited discovery that is different from what they submitted to the judge, then I assume that is perjury and obviously needs to be punished to the full extent of the law. I doubt this will happen because everyone knows what's at stake here.
    - joshuamorton 9y ago
      I did. The injunction states that the Fuji lidar may be infringing on trade secrets, the court can't rule and is unwilling got make a prelim injunction, telling Uber to chuck it off a cliff, but will allow expert analysis to confirm. The problem is that Waymo made some overbroad claims and so Alsup is punishing them for it by making the injunciton weaker (and he states as much in footnote 6). That's also what is covered in part 6 of the injunction relief. They are granted additional depositions and analysis of "schematics, work orders, source code, notes, and emails" regarding lidar. In fact, reading the trade secret infringement part, it reads as though there's no question that levandowski stole documents and that those documents were used to create Uber's lidar using proprietary information from Google. That doesn't bode well. Edit: Or in other words, Alsup's questions aren't whether or not proprietary info was stolen, but whether or not it is still being actively used.

pfarnsworth 9y ago

You either didn't read the injunction carefully, or you didn't understand it. It's a pretty huge win for Uber. They don't need to stop working on self-driving cars at all. They just need to ensure Levandowski doesn't work on anything Lidar related, which he already doesn't. The only thing that is potentially a problem for Uber is that they need to use whatever methods to compel Levandowski to hand over the 14,000 documents. If he doesn't, I think the judge's ruling means that they need to fire him, which means the $250,000,000 they paid him goes up in smoke.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
joshuamorton 9y ago
(Disclosure: I work at google) You're ignoring a big part of this though: Waymo is given expedited discovery and is allowed to look at Uber's hardware. The injunction says that Uber cannot use Levandowski or any of the work he brought, and so Google['s expert] is allowed to look at Uber's hardware and make sure that none of it is based on the stolen documents. On the assumption that waymo's claims are true (ie. Uber is basing their work on stolen proprietary designs), this is a major blow to Uber, since they would need to redesign their lidar hardware from the ground up.
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  Read the injunction. They already went through the design. The judge didn't issue an injunction against using or even continuing development on Uber's Lidar. What more do you expect to find? If Waymo found a design during expedited discovery that is different from what they submitted to the judge, then I assume that is perjury and obviously needs to be punished to the full extent of the law. I doubt this will happen because everyone knows what's at stake here.
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    I did. The injunction states that the Fuji lidar may be infringing on trade secrets, the court can't rule and is unwilling got make a prelim injunction, telling Uber to chuck it off a cliff, but will allow expert analysis to confirm. The problem is that Waymo made some overbroad claims and so Alsup is punishing them for it by making the injunciton weaker (and he states as much in footnote 6). That's also what is covered in part 6 of the injunction relief. They are granted additional depositions and analysis of "schematics, work orders, source code, notes, and emails" regarding lidar. In fact, reading the trade secret infringement part, it reads as though there's no question that levandowski stole documents and that those documents were used to create Uber's lidar using proprietary information from Google. That doesn't bode well. Edit: Or in other words, Alsup's questions aren't whether or not proprietary info was stolen, but whether or not it is still being actively used.