Google Engineer Dismissed the Importance of Stolen Self Driving Car Documents. Googles self driving car company Waymo sued Uber in February, claiming that Anthony Levandowski, a former Waymo engineer, stole 1. Waymos lidar systems before accepting a job with Ubers self driving car program. But emails between a hardware engineer at Google and Googles attorneys made public today show that the files downloaded by Levandowski might not have been considered to be the crown jewels of Waymos self driving car efforts. The Google engineer said that the files Levandowski accessed were low value and that his download doesnt ring the alarm bells for me. The emails reflect a common refrain among engineers who develop autonomous technologythat software, not hardware, is where companies can gain an advantage over each other. Waymo isnt the only company developing its own custom lidar system, but its also invested heavily in software for simulation and navigation. Waymos lawsuit focuses primarily on details of its circuit boards, which it claims Uber copied with Levandowskis help. But of the nine trade secret claims Waymo is bringing to trial next month, only five are included in the 1. Levandowski allegedly stolethe other four came from elsewhere, so Waymos lawsuit isnt based on the documents alone. Levandowski abruptly quit his job at Waymo in January 2. Otto. When Uber acquired Otto just months after its launch, Google began to worry. And when a Google employee was accidentally cced on a December email to Uber engineers showing a diagram of a lidar circuit board that looked remarkably similar to Waymos own custom design, Googles investigation into Levandowski picked up steam. But even prior to the cc fail, Google was trying to figure out what exactly Levandowski had done during his final months at the company, and how he had convinced several employees to launch a competing startup with him. A lawyer for Google contacted Waymo employees in September 2. Levandowski and two other former employees.
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