Ride-hailing company Uber has reached a settlement with Google’s autonomous car unit Waymo over claims that Uber stole and inappropriately used trade secrets to develop self-driving technology. Under the terms of the deal, Uber promised not to use Waymo technology in its self-driving cars and to ensure no Waymo components were already in use. It also agreed to give Waymo 0.34 percent of Uber’s equity, equal to around USD 245 million, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The legal conflict revolved around Uber’s USD 680 million acquisition of autonomous-truck company Otto in 2016. Waymo sued Uber in February 2017 claiming it conspired to steal and use driverless-car design secrets as part of the Otto deal, specifically a technology known as ‘Lidar’, or light detection and ranging systems, used to guide autonomous vehicles.
Uber has always denied the claims and, in a statement following the deal, new Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said: “To be clear, while we do not believe that any trade secrets made their way from Waymo to Uber, nor do we believe that Uber has used any of Waymo’s proprietary information in its self-driving technology, we are taking steps with Waymo to ensure our Lidar and software represents just our good work."
Waymo announced that the settlement “will protect Waymo’s intellectual property now and into the future.”
