Judge’s order bars Uber engineer from Lidar work, demands return of stolen files

Enlarge / Pilot models of the Uber self-driving car at the Uber Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (credit: ANGELO MERENDINO/AFP/Getty Images)

A US federal judge has ordered Uber to bar its top self-driving car engineer from any work on lidar and to return stolen files to Google's self-driving car unit, Waymo.

Today's order (PDF) by US District Judge William Alsup demands Uber do "whatever it can to ensure that its employees return 14,000-plus pilfered files to their rightful owner." The files must be returned by May 31. The order was granted last week but was just made public in an unsealed document this morning.

US District Judge William Alsup found that Uber "likely knew or at least should have known" that the man it hired as its top self-driving car engineer, Anthony Levandowski, took and kept more than 14,000 Waymo files. Those files "likely contain at least some trade secrets," making some "provisional relief" for Waymo appropriate.

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