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The company claims that Turner, who was a manager at a Tesla distribution center, sent confidential documents containing information about the company’s receivi

The company claims that Turner, who was a manager at a Tesla distribution center, sent confidential documents containing information about the company’s receiving and inventory procedures, along with “internal schematics and line drawings of the physical layouts of certain Tesla warehouses” to his personal email address with the words “you sly dog you...” Turner allegedly sent another document to his personal email later that same day with a note that said: “Ooooh man... so much time and effort. Loved every second of it though,” according to Tesla. ... After Emigh joined Zoox, Tesla says he mistakenly sent an email to Cooper’s old Tesla address, with a modified version of a proprietary Tesla document attached. The document was “freshly-emblazoned with the Zoox logo,” Tesla claims, but it still featured hallmarks of the original version, which the automaker says shows “without doubt, that the Defendants are actively using the Tesla information they stole.” I defer to your legal background, but this seems like extremely poor judgement and that it would make the case harder for Zoox. [edit: the linked article has changed substantially since I first read it. I quoted the article as it was at the time of my commenting, and it had much more details around the XPeng allegations involving iCloud and similar incidents with Apple/FBI investigations]

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gamblor956 8y ago
It is definitely poor judgement by Zoox. And if Tesla had its act together, Zoox would be totally f'd (assuming the unlikely scenario that China would actually enforce a court judgement against a Chinese company). The issue though is that Tesla has to show that Zoox is actually using that information in its products or processes. It's possible--even likely--that they'll be able to do so with respect to the Autopilot secrets (I didn't address that in my comment edit: since that was a separate lawsuit from the one against Zoox) but with respect to the logistics secrets there's a snowball's chance in hell that Zoox modeled any of their logistics after Tesla's processes.
- ajross 8y ago
  That seems, again, extraordinarily glib and unserious. You're asserting without evidence that Tesla had nothing of value in the documents stolen, but all they have to do to prevail is show that any of the trade secrets provided a competetive advantage. So sure, their logistics are a mess in general, but if they had a great idea for, I dunno, shipping-based rolling warehouse allocation or something, and Zoox got caught doing the same thing, it's game over.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    So sure, their logistics are a mess in general, but if they had a great idea for, I dunno, shipping-based rolling warehouse allocation or something, and Zoox got caught doing the same thing, it's game over. But that's not the world we live in. Tesla posted their lawsuit online, and the details are available all over. From the Verge, on the Zoox lawsuit: The employees allegedly made off with information related to what Tesla calls its “WARP” system, a proprietary software platform the company built to collectively manage things like manufacturing, warehousing, inventory, distribution, and transportation. “These materials and knowhow were developed by Tesla over many years, and at great expense,” the company’s lawyers write. (WARP was described by multiple former employees to CNBC last year as “seemingly never complete,” which made it hard to keep track of budgets.) The company claims that Turner, who was a manager at a Tesla distribution center, sent confidential documents containing information about the company’s receiving and inventory procedures, along with “internal schematics and line drawings of the physical layouts of certain Tesla warehouses” to his personal email address with the words “you sly dog you...” Turner allegedly sent another document to his personal email later that same day with a note that said: “Ooooh man... so much time and effort. Loved every second of it though,” according to Tesla. Zoox hasn't started building anything yet. It's still in the prototype stage. It's possible that Zoox would have used this information if it got to the point of actually building a car (but see Faraday Future for an example of optimistic thinking). But Tesla would need to show that Zoox used a proprietary system for managing inventory, warehousing, etc., instead of the many platforms available on the market, most of which appear to function better than Tesla's in-house system. Tesla would alternatively need to show that Zoox used the layouts of Tesla's warehouses in designing its own. It's the same issue that Waymo ran into with Uber: whatever the former employee may have done, the new employer isn't liable for anything if they don't actually use that misappropriated information.

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gamblor956 8y ago

It is definitely poor judgement by Zoox. And if Tesla had its act together, Zoox would be totally f'd (assuming the unlikely scenario that China would actually enforce a court judgement against a Chinese company). The issue though is that Tesla has to show that Zoox is actually using that information in its products or processes. It's possible--even likely--that they'll be able to do so with respect to the Autopilot secrets (I didn't address that in my comment edit: since that was a separate lawsuit from the one against Zoox) but with respect to the logistics secrets there's a snowball's chance in hell that Zoox modeled any of their logistics after Tesla's processes.

ajross 8y ago
That seems, again, extraordinarily glib and unserious. You're asserting without evidence that Tesla had nothing of value in the documents stolen, but all they have to do to prevail is show that any of the trade secrets provided a competetive advantage. So sure, their logistics are a mess in general, but if they had a great idea for, I dunno, shipping-based rolling warehouse allocation or something, and Zoox got caught doing the same thing, it's game over.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  So sure, their logistics are a mess in general, but if they had a great idea for, I dunno, shipping-based rolling warehouse allocation or something, and Zoox got caught doing the same thing, it's game over. But that's not the world we live in. Tesla posted their lawsuit online, and the details are available all over. From the Verge, on the Zoox lawsuit: The employees allegedly made off with information related to what Tesla calls its “WARP” system, a proprietary software platform the company built to collectively manage things like manufacturing, warehousing, inventory, distribution, and transportation. “These materials and knowhow were developed by Tesla over many years, and at great expense,” the company’s lawyers write. (WARP was described by multiple former employees to CNBC last year as “seemingly never complete,” which made it hard to keep track of budgets.) The company claims that Turner, who was a manager at a Tesla distribution center, sent confidential documents containing information about the company’s receiving and inventory procedures, along with “internal schematics and line drawings of the physical layouts of certain Tesla warehouses” to his personal email address with the words “you sly dog you...” Turner allegedly sent another document to his personal email later that same day with a note that said: “Ooooh man... so much time and effort. Loved every second of it though,” according to Tesla. Zoox hasn't started building anything yet. It's still in the prototype stage. It's possible that Zoox would have used this information if it got to the point of actually building a car (but see Faraday Future for an example of optimistic thinking). But Tesla would need to show that Zoox used a proprietary system for managing inventory, warehousing, etc., instead of the many platforms available on the market, most of which appear to function better than Tesla's in-house system. Tesla would alternatively need to show that Zoox used the layouts of Tesla's warehouses in designing its own. It's the same issue that Waymo ran into with Uber: whatever the former employee may have done, the new employer isn't liable for anything if they don't actually use that misappropriated information.