6 ms·

It's meaningless if Uber didn't in fact possess any Waymo trade secrets. You're not allowed to use other people's trade secrets anyway.

mbesto 9y ago
Which implies that Uber needs to start off it's plans to build driverless cars from zero or partner, which is precisely what the lawsuit was about. It's also what Otto's acquisition price was predicated on - that it had built IP from zero for driverless cars. The settlement is an indication that it did not do that, which means they'll likely have to scrap a large piece of it's incremental work. > You're not allowed to use other people's trade secrets anyway. Being allowed to do something and actually doing something are two very different things.
- xyzzy_plugh 9y ago
  What? Nothing is implied. No one is starting over. Money changes hands and everyone saves face.
  - mbesto 9y ago
    > pledges not to use Waymo's trade secrets If this statement is indeed true and Uber isn't totally brazen, then yes it would imply that Uber is going to have to seriously clamp down on how it uses the data/IP they got from Otto (which clearly they got from Google/Waymo). Not a lawyer, but that's how I read it.
    - tmh79 9y ago
      They didn't get any IP from waymo, that is why waymo settled. There is no additional clamping down, they just need to continue to show alphabet that they're not doing anything fishy.
      - mbesto 9y ago
        See my point above. You don't settle if your claim is 100% baseless, so it's very unlikely that no trade secrets were obtained.
- Splines 9y ago
  > Which implies that Uber needs to start off it's plans to build driverless cars from zero What does this mean in a practical sense? rm -rf /car? Can the Uber engineers who worked on this continue to do so, or are they "tainted"?
- jedberg 9y ago
  > The settlement is an indication that it did not do that, Not really. The settlement is an indication that someone did an ROI calculation and decided that .043% of Uber is cheaper than the cost of seeing the trial to conclusion with the possibility of losing.
  - mbesto 9y ago
    Based on what we all read in the news today, winning the autonomous race against a competitor is a double digit billion dollar opportunity. IMHO, the 0.043% is nothing more than a signal, rather than an absolute ROI. That number is a rounding error on a Alphabet balance sheet. If this was Oracle/SAP/Microsoft it would be a different story, where punitive damages are part of it's licensing model due to lack of growth from existing products.
- tmh79 9y ago
  > The settlement is an indication that it did not do that, which means they'll likely have to scrap a large piece of it's incremental work. That isn't true. Uber didn't use any trade secrets from waymo, thats why waymo settled. The point of the oversite is to continue to show that uber isn't using their trade secrets. There is no part of the uber tech stack that needs to be retired as an outcome of this case.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Uber didn't use any trade secrets from waymo, thats why waymo settled. Waymo has plenty of motivation to settle if they could get adequate behavioral commitments in the settlement, even if they thought Uber had and had used Waymo trade secrets. We don't know here details of the behavioral commitments around preventing use of Waymo technology, but their existence was in the public release. Given that, if Waymo wins the self-driving race, Uber is a likely customer and is a company Alphabet already owns a nice chunk of through GV, there is plenty of incentive to minimize cost to Uber as well as Waymo while mitigating any risk of Uber using Waymo tech. Dragging out the court process isn't in anyone's interest, whether or not Uber stole and used Waymo technology.
  - mbesto 9y ago
    > To be clear, while we do not believe that any trade secrets made their way from Waymo to Uber, nor do we believe that Uber has used any of Waymo’s proprietary information in its self-driving technology, we are taking steps with Waymo to ensure our Lidar and software represents just our good work. [0] > Uber didn't use any trade secrets from waymo, thats why waymo settled. This is still unclear. > There is no part of the uber tech stack that needs to be retired as an outcome of this case. Honestly, no one knows for sure, everything here (including my statements) is pure conjecture. Here's the reality though - Uber did not explicitly say "we absolutely 100% did not steal trade secrets". Outside the court of law, that tells me they are going to lose something of value...to what extent, I guess only Uber knows. [0] https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-waymo-settlement/ https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-waymo-settlement/
rhizome 9y ago
You're not allowed to use other people's trade secrets anyway Sure you are, you're just not allowed to reveal them. That is, once they're revealed [to outsiders], they can be used by anybody. The only cause of action that I know of is to go after the revealer (as we have here), nobody who learns (and/or uses) anything from a disclosure of trade secrets has anything to worry about.
- rhino369 9y ago
  That's not really true. If learn a trade secret you cannot use it. If it became public knowledge through no fault of your own, it's no longer a trade secret. Put if you steal the recipe to Coke and email it to Pepsi, they can't use it, even if use doesn't disclose it.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    >If learn a trade secret you cannot use it. It depends on how you learn the a trade secret.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    The law in California is complicated, and appears to hold that a company is liable if they "knew or should have known" the information they were using was misappropriated. This came up a bunch back in the SCOX v. IBM days.

mbesto 9y ago

Which implies that Uber needs to start off it's plans to build driverless cars from zero or partner, which is precisely what the lawsuit was about. It's also what Otto's acquisition price was predicated on - that it had built IP from zero for driverless cars. The settlement is an indication that it did not do that, which means they'll likely have to scrap a large piece of it's incremental work. > You're not allowed to use other people's trade secrets anyway. Being allowed to do something and actually doing something are two very different things.

xyzzy_plugh 9y ago
What? Nothing is implied. No one is starting over. Money changes hands and everyone saves face.
- mbesto 9y ago
  > pledges not to use Waymo's trade secrets If this statement is indeed true and Uber isn't totally brazen, then yes it would imply that Uber is going to have to seriously clamp down on how it uses the data/IP they got from Otto (which clearly they got from Google/Waymo). Not a lawyer, but that's how I read it.
  - tmh79 9y ago
    They didn't get any IP from waymo, that is why waymo settled. There is no additional clamping down, they just need to continue to show alphabet that they're not doing anything fishy.
    - mbesto 9y ago
      See my point above. You don't settle if your claim is 100% baseless, so it's very unlikely that no trade secrets were obtained.
Splines 9y ago
> Which implies that Uber needs to start off it's plans to build driverless cars from zero What does this mean in a practical sense? rm -rf /car? Can the Uber engineers who worked on this continue to do so, or are they "tainted"?
jedberg 9y ago
> The settlement is an indication that it did not do that, Not really. The settlement is an indication that someone did an ROI calculation and decided that .043% of Uber is cheaper than the cost of seeing the trial to conclusion with the possibility of losing.
- mbesto 9y ago
  Based on what we all read in the news today, winning the autonomous race against a competitor is a double digit billion dollar opportunity. IMHO, the 0.043% is nothing more than a signal, rather than an absolute ROI. That number is a rounding error on a Alphabet balance sheet. If this was Oracle/SAP/Microsoft it would be a different story, where punitive damages are part of it's licensing model due to lack of growth from existing products.
tmh79 9y ago
> The settlement is an indication that it did not do that, which means they'll likely have to scrap a large piece of it's incremental work. That isn't true. Uber didn't use any trade secrets from waymo, thats why waymo settled. The point of the oversite is to continue to show that uber isn't using their trade secrets. There is no part of the uber tech stack that needs to be retired as an outcome of this case.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Uber didn't use any trade secrets from waymo, thats why waymo settled. Waymo has plenty of motivation to settle if they could get adequate behavioral commitments in the settlement, even if they thought Uber had and had used Waymo trade secrets. We don't know here details of the behavioral commitments around preventing use of Waymo technology, but their existence was in the public release. Given that, if Waymo wins the self-driving race, Uber is a likely customer and is a company Alphabet already owns a nice chunk of through GV, there is plenty of incentive to minimize cost to Uber as well as Waymo while mitigating any risk of Uber using Waymo tech. Dragging out the court process isn't in anyone's interest, whether or not Uber stole and used Waymo technology.
- mbesto 9y ago
  > To be clear, while we do not believe that any trade secrets made their way from Waymo to Uber, nor do we believe that Uber has used any of Waymo’s proprietary information in its self-driving technology, we are taking steps with Waymo to ensure our Lidar and software represents just our good work. [0] > Uber didn't use any trade secrets from waymo, thats why waymo settled. This is still unclear. > There is no part of the uber tech stack that needs to be retired as an outcome of this case. Honestly, no one knows for sure, everything here (including my statements) is pure conjecture. Here's the reality though - Uber did not explicitly say "we absolutely 100% did not steal trade secrets". Outside the court of law, that tells me they are going to lose something of value...to what extent, I guess only Uber knows. [0] https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-waymo-settlement/ https://www.uber.com/newsroom/uber-waymo-settlement/

rhizome 9y ago

You're not allowed to use other people's trade secrets anyway Sure you are, you're just not allowed to reveal them. That is, once they're revealed [to outsiders], they can be used by anybody. The only cause of action that I know of is to go after the revealer (as we have here), nobody who learns (and/or uses) anything from a disclosure of trade secrets has anything to worry about.

rhino369 9y ago
That's not really true. If learn a trade secret you cannot use it. If it became public knowledge through no fault of your own, it's no longer a trade secret. Put if you steal the recipe to Coke and email it to Pepsi, they can't use it, even if use doesn't disclose it.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  >If learn a trade secret you cannot use it. It depends on how you learn the a trade secret.
- rhizome 9y ago
  The law in California is complicated, and appears to hold that a company is liable if they "knew or should have known" the information they were using was misappropriated. This came up a bunch back in the SCOX v. IBM days.