Uber stole trade secrets, Google's self-driving car company alleges

A former employee stole trade secrets from Google's self-driving car project and brought them to a startup that was later acquired by Uber, according to a complaint filed in federal court on Thursday. Waymo, a division of Google's parent company Alphabet that took over the search giant's self-driving car project last year, filed a complaint against Uber's subsidiary Otto, claiming trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement, and unfair competition. The complaint alleges that Otto co-founder Anthony Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 proprietary design files--9.7GB Those designs showed up in an email that Waymo received from one of its circuit board suppliers in December, according to the complaint. The email, which apparently was referring to Uber's own Lidar design, confirmed Waymo's earlier suspicions that Levandowski had given Waymo's trade secrets to Uber, which acquired Otto in August 2016.