You're ignoring a big part of this though: Waymo is given expedited discovery and is allowed to look at Uber's hardware. The injunction says that Uber cannot use Levandowski or any of the work he brought, and so Google['s expert] is allowed to look at Uber's hardware and make sure that none of it is based on the stolen documents.
On the assumption that waymo's claims are true (ie. Uber is basing their work on stolen proprietary designs), this is a major blow to Uber, since they would need to redesign their lidar hardware from the ground up.
If Waymo found a design during expedited discovery that is different from what they submitted to the judge, then I assume that is perjury and obviously needs to be punished to the full extent of the law. I doubt this will happen because everyone knows what's at stake here.
In fact, reading the trade secret infringement part, it reads as though there's no question that levandowski stole documents and that those documents were used to create Uber's lidar using proprietary information from Google. That doesn't bode well.
Edit: Or in other words, Alsup's questions aren't whether or not proprietary info was stolen, but whether or not it is still being actively used.
If this is your conclusion, then I think you misread what the injunction said. The point of the expedited discovery is to figure out whether or not the documents were used by Uber. The idea that there is "no question" that the documents were used is false.
"Finally, as to whether Uber has used any information enumerated inWaymo’s list of trade secrets, that is the main question on the instant motion. Accordingly,Waymo has received expedited discovery — including an inspection of defendants’ LiDAR devices, document production, and depositions of defendants’ engineers and experts — to shed light on the answer. Insofar as Waymo still falls short of showing use as to certain asserted trade secrets, this order declines to fill the gap with adverse inferences at this stage."
"That being said, Waymo has shown at least serious questions going to the merits concerning whether some information within the 14,000-plus downloaded files has been used by defendants and qualifies for trade secret protection"
"Further discovery may ultimately disprove even Waymo’s revised position that <redacted> is not generally known and economically valuable in the field.""At this stage, that is sufficient to extrapolate that at least some of the information in the 14,000-plus downloads likely qualifies for trade secret protection, and certain relief is warranted to prevent the misuse of those downloads as this litigation progresses."
Note that these two quotes are about a separate way that the Fuji likely infringes on the GBr3.
It really does seem like Alsup would have provided further relief if waymo hadn't been so broad in their claims of infringement (again, see footnote 6: "Waymo's inequitable conduct is factored into the relief granted herein")
It seems to generally come down to this:
"For similar reasons, this order also declines, at this stage, to enjoin Uber from using even the specific asserted trade secrets on which Waymo has shown serious questions going to the merits — i.e., Even a limited injunction as to these specific features would impose hardship on Uber’s overall LiDAR development that is disproportionate to Waymo’s limited showing of misappropriation by defendants thus far"
Regardless of whether Uber's design is using some of Waymo's design concepts -- I am sure there will be a lot of different aspects in Uber's designs some of which could be useful for Waymo.
Edit: I don't think there's much risk of this. It's illegal enough that I doubt an individual engineer would risk prison over the corporation they happened to work for.
There's evidence. But not enough for a preliminary injunction, which is why there's going to be a trial. If there were a smoking gun, then they would have issues a preliminary injunction. And there hasn't even been a question as to whether or not these are trade secrets. That's part of the trial.
2. "is striking evidence" is a phrase that to me implies that the Uber lidar likely infringes, please explain if you disagree.
3. Speaking of bias, elsewhere in this thread you say "As far as I can tell from reading the injunction, there wasn't a single case of a trade secret from those documents making its way into Uber's technology." [0]. Given that Alsup believes that Waymo has demonstrated "striking evidence" to the contrary, will you revise that position?
A preliminary injunction was issues against Levandowski, because as the judge said, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that he downloaded the files. Given the judge's decision, this injunction is a layup and pretty understandable. If the technology he allegedly stole made its way into Uber's technology, it would be an easy decision to give an injunction for Uber to stop development. But the judge even didn't issue a narrow injunction against any development in Lidar whatsoever. So that speaks volumes. Not winning a preliminary injunction is pretty huge.
Yes there was, that's what this document is.
>A preliminary injunction was issues against Levandowski
No, a preliminary injunction was issues against Uber preventing Levandowski from working on things. As far as the court is concerned, Levandowski isn't a party in this case. To be clear, this Order is an injunction against Uber, no one else. That's the way the court sees it (and this has been made pretty clear in prior arguments).
There was enough evidence to issue a preliminary injunction against uber, just not one that required them to stop working on lidar completely. This is despite what Alsup says at the end of page 12, which I read as being the main reason (and again, alsup clearly states this in footnote six) that the injunctive relief isn't stronger. Or in other words, Alsup was, based on the evidence provided, willing to place a stronger injunction against Uber, but has not as a way to 'punish' Waymo for overreaching in some of its claims.
I'd take some time to read section D. It pretty clearly explains all of this (basically, Waymo asked for the court to account for Adverse Interference to make a stronger judgement, and the court denied because Waymo was also misbehaving).
* > If this is your conclusion, *
// ^ remove the space between the asterisk and the text
Those on mobile or who don't want to scroll far thank you.
They don't need to stop working on self-driving cars at all. They just need to ensure Levandowski doesn't work on anything Lidar related, which he already doesn't. The only thing that is potentially a problem for Uber is that they need to use whatever methods to compel Levandowski to hand over the 14,000 documents. If he doesn't, I think the judge's ruling means that they need to fire him, which means the $250,000,000 they paid him goes up in smoke.