William Alsup, a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California, pushed back the start of a trial between Google affiliate Waymo and the now ubiquitous ride-sharing app provider surrounding autonomous driving tech from Oct. 10 until Dec. 4.
William Alsup, U.S. District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, on Tuesday granted Google affiliate Waymo’s request to to delay the trial in its trade secret lawsuit against the now-ubiquitous ride-sharing app provider Uber Technologies Inc. until December.
The trial, which revolves around autonomous driving technology allegedly stolen on behalf of Uber by a former Waymo employee, will now begin Dec. 4 instead of Oct. 10.
Waymo, the automated vehicle subsidiary of Google Parent Alphabet Inc., requested the trial get pushed back so it could have more time to investigate documents and e-mails that Uber recently disclosed.
In a filing Monday, Waymo asked to delay the trial beyond the original two-month extension request, but at Tuesday’s hearing, Judge Alsup said the trial start date of Dec. 4 was non-negotiable, and that if either party did not like it, they could appeal, according to Law360.
In addition, the judge chastised attorneys on both sides, saying he “cannot trust what they say.”
For months, Waymo has been trying to gain access to a due diligence report Uber commissioned last year before buying self-driving truck startup Otto. The report, which had been conducted by cybersecurity firm Stroz Friedberg, became public on Monday.
Uber purchased Otto for $680 million in August 2016, and hired Anthony Levandowski, who helped developed the company early on in the year, to lead its self-driving car efforts. Levandowski had worked as an engineer at Waymo until Jan. 27, 2016.
The primary finding in Stroz Friedberg’s report was that although Levandowski retained, and in some cases, accessed confidential Google information after leaving the company, the firm did not find any evidence indicating that he transferred any of that data to Otto or other third parties.
The report also details how Levandowski recruited other Google employees. Stroz Friedberg interviewed Levandowski in March 2016.
“Our forensic examination of Levandowski’s devices and accounts corroborates his assertion that he stored and accessed Google files on his personal laptop in folders labeled ‘Chauffeur’ and ‘Google,’” the firm said in the report. “However, contrary to his belief that there were no or few Google e-mails on his laptop, Stroz discovered approximately 50,000 Google work e-mail messages that were downloaded onto Levandowski’s computer on Sept. 20, 2014. Ten of those e-mails were last accessed between Sept. 1, 2015 and Jan. 28, 2016.
“It is difficult to believe that Levandowski was not, prior to his interview, fully aware of the extent of the data that he had retained,” the report added.
A few weeks after his departure from Google, Levandowski said he discovered that he possessed Google proprietary information on five disks in his personal Drobo 5D at his house, which included source code, design files, laser files, engineering documents, and software related to Google self-driving cars.
He said the last time he accessed the data was between November 2014 and January 2015, and that once he realized he had the disks, he told his attorney and brought this information to Uber’s attention at a regularly scheduled status meeting in mid-March 2016.
Levandowski said he couldn’t recall the specific date of the meeting, but Stroz Friedberg was informed that it was March 11, 2016. Following the meeting, he brought the disks to a shredding facility in Oakland, later identified as Shred Works, watched the disks get shredded, paid in cash, and did not receive a receipt, he said.
According to the report, however, Stroz Friedberg’s investigators showed Shred Works’ employees a picture of Levandowski, but nobody recognized him.
In addition, the investigators were told that all destructions are recorded on a triplicate, carbon-copy receipt that includes the name of the Shred Works’ employee assisting the customer, the date, the time, a description of the service, and the method and amount of payment. The customer is then asked to sign the receipt, and is given the top copy.
A Shred Works manager could not find a receipt signed by Levandowski, but the manager did find a receipt dated March 14, 2016, which indicated that five disks were destroyed and paid for in cash. The signature on that receipt, however, was illegible.
In addition to Levandowski, Stroz Friedberg conducted “due diligence” on four other Otto employees who previously worked at Google: Lior Ron, Don Burnette, Soren Juelsgaard and Colin Sebern.
Between all five employees, Stroz Friedberg forensically collected 53 computers, tablets, smartphones, thumb drives, webmail accounts, and other cloud-based repositories to analyze. The firm’s analysis found that in early 2016, Ron conducted internet research on how to delete and destroy digital data, and the firm found several items that were deleted.
On March 9, 2016, Levandowski instructed Ron to delete all messages on his PC and phone, specifically saying, “make sure you delete all the messages tonight on both your PC and iPhone,” according to the report.
Judge postpones Waymo’s suit against Uber
