Alphabet accuses Uber of stealing autonomous car techFebruary 24, 2017 - 12:10 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - The race to develop self-driving vehicles took a new turn on Thursday, February 23 when Google's parent company Alphabet filed a lawsuit against Uber, accusing it of stealing technology, AFP says. Alphabet contends that a manager at its autonomous car subsidiary Waymo took technical data with him when he left to launch a competing venture that went on to become Otto, Uber's self-driving vehicle unit, in a reported $680 million deal. "Otto and Uber have taken Waymo's intellectual property so that they could avoid incurring the risk, time and expense of independently developing their own technology," Waymo said in a San Francisco federal court filing. Waymo is calling for a trial to stop Otto and Uber from using what it says is patented technology. Waymo also wants unspecified damages in what it described in court documents as "an action for trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement, and unfair competition." The company argued that a "calculated theft" of its technology "reportedly netted Otto employees over half a billion dollars and allowed Uber to revive a stalled program, all at Waymo's expense." Responding to an AFP request for comment, an Uber spokeswoman said in an email that "we take the allegations made against Otto and Uber employees seriously and we will review this matter carefully." The California-based ride-sharing service acquired the commercial transport-focused tech startup Otto last year as it pressed ahead with its pursuit of self-driving technology. Anthony Levandowski, a co-founder of Otto, a 90-person startup, was put in charge of Uber's efforts to develop self-driving technology for personal driving, delivery and trucking. Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." Partner news Most popular in the section | Armenia to participate in key EU meeting for the first time ever National Assembly speaker Alen Simonyan has said that Armenia will for the first time participate in the Conference. U.S. reacts to Russia’s criticism of upcoming Armenia-EU-U.S. meeting Matthew Miller has weighed in on Russia’s criticism of an upcoming Armenia-EU-U.S. meeting. Lavrov sees ‘collapse’ of Russia’s ties with Armenia Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has underscored heightened tensions between Russia and Armenia. Russia clarifying reports on Baku’s alleged arms supply to Ukraine Russia says is carefully working to verify reports about alleged arms supplies from Azerbaijan to Ukraine |