The US judge overhearing a trade secrets and patent infringement clash between Waymo, formerly Google’s self-driving car division, and Uber has referred the suit to federal prosecutors.
In an order signed, District Judge William Alsup called for the US attorney to investigate the alleged theft of Waymo’s self-driving car technology. The self-driving car company, in a lawsuit filed in February at the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, claimed that these files contained Waymo’s LiDAR (a laser-based scanning and mapping technology) circuit board designs.
In March, Waymo pushed for a preliminary injunction to stop Uber and Otto from using the trade secrets and infringing its patents. Uber hit back against the request in April, calling it a “misfire” and claiming that a search of Uber’s computers had “not yielded any of the 14,000 files Waymo alleges that Uber misappropriated”. Uber’s attempt to take the case into arbitration was denied by the judge.

Source: WIPR