Waymo drops most of its patent case against Uber

Enlarge / Pieces of Uber's earlier lidar system, codenamed "Spider," are arrayed in a courtroom in San Francisco. (credit: Waymo v. Uber court documents)

Waymo has narrowed the claims in its lawsuit against Uber over self-driving car technology. Alphabet's self-driving car company dropped most of its patent claims in an effort to streamline a planned October trial.

Uber was sued in February, when Waymo dropped the bombshell allegation that a former Uber engineer, Anthony Levandowski, stole more than 14,000 files while working at Google. Levandowski hasn't denied the downloads, instead asserting his Fifth Amendment rights. Meanwhile, Uber fired Levandowski and defended itself, saying Waymo's trade secrets never made their way onto Uber servers.

With fiery disputes over discovery erupting practically every week, Waymo's patent case was a kind of corollary to the main show. Uber has used two different types of "lidar," the main technology at issue in the case. Lidar is a system for using lasers to allow self-driving cars to "see" the streetscape around them. Uber gave its prototypes the names "Spider" and "Fuji."

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