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Takeaways from the Swift End to <i>Waymo v. Uber</i>
“It was definitely the trade secret trial of the century,” said Robert Milligan, Los Angeles-based co-chair of Seyfarth Shaw's trade secrets, computer fraud and noncompetes practice group, who was watching the Waymo v. Uber trial from afar. “Just for the prurient interest I'm sad to see it go away,” he added.
Milligan was far from alone among lawyers in the labor and employment and intellectual property bars in the wake of the announcement on Feb. 9 that the parties had reached an agreement to settle the case in U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California's courtroom. The underlying dispute centered on Uber's acquisition of Ottomotto, an autonomous car company founded by former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski. At trial, Waymo's lawyers from Quinn Emanuel presented evidence that Levandowski had downloaded a trove of 14,000-plus files from Google before he left to form the startup and that he had copied the files to his personal laptop.
As part of the deal, Waymo received a 0.34% equity stake in Uber Technologies Inc., or about $245 million based on a $72 billion valuation of the ride-sharing giant. Perhaps more valuably, Waymo got assurances that Uber will not incorporate any of Waymo's confidential information into its hardware and software. Now that the case itself is, as Alsup said after the settlement announcement, “ancient history,” here are three things for lawyers to take away from the whole saga.
Trade Secrets Are the New Black
The details might not be quite as dramatic as they were in Waymo v. Uber, but lawyers expect trade secrets to continue to be a fertile source for litigation.
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