Judge orders Uber not to use driverless-car tech from Google spinoff Waymo

A federal judge has ordered Uber to stop using technology that a key executive downloaded before he left Waymo, the Alphabet Inc. autonomous car arm that was spun off from Google. The order filed Monday in a trade secrets theft lawsuit also requires Uber to return all downloaded materials. The high-stakes corporate espionage case revolves around Waymo's allegations that Uber's work on self-driving cars has been riding on trade secrets stolen by a former Waymo engineer, Anthony Levandowski. Judge William Alsup in San Francisco said in Monday's ruling that Waymo has shown compelling evidence that Levandowski downloaded confidential files before leaving Waymo. The judge also said evidence shows that before he left Waymo, Levandowski and Uber planned for Uber to acquire a company formed by Levandowski.