WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Uber has denied allegations made by Alphabet's Waymo unit and claims that it was unaware that its self-driving car tech head had downloaded technical information from his former employer.
'Prior to the filing of this lawsuit, no one at Uber knew that Levandowski had downloaded any Google proprietary information for any improper purpose or that he had deliberately taken any Google proprietary information with him when he left Google,' according to an Uber filing in San Francisco federal court.
Alphabet's self-driving project Waymo was seeking an injunction to block Uber from using self-driving operations. Waymo had filed a lawsuit against Uber and the head of its self-driving division Anthony Levandowski accusing of theft of a key technology system.
Levandowski had joined Uber when the ride-hailing service acquired his startup, Otto, last year.
Waymo alleges that Levandowski stole the company's proprietary design for its laser-based radar system. According to Waymo, before Levandowski left Google he downloaded 14,000 'highly confidential' files to an external hard drive, including the design for the company's lidar circuit board.
Uber said that it believes the file downloading was unrelated to Levandowski's future employment at Uber. He might have taken the data to make sure received a payment of $120 million bonus from Google, which was expected.
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