• by Chuck Martin , February 9, 2018

The lawsuit over autonomous vehicle trade secrets between Alphabet’s Waymo and Uber Technologies is over, with Uber agreeing to pay $245 million to Waymo

Uber maintains that no trade secrets from Waymo were used, according to a statement from Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

“To be clear, while we do not believe that any trade secrets made their way from Waymo to Uber, nor do we believe that Uber has used any of Waymo’s proprietary information in its self-driving technology, we are taking steps with Waymo to ensure our Lidar and software represents just our good work,” stated Khosrowshahi.

Google is also an investor in Uber.

“To our friends at Alphabet: we are partners, you are an important investor in Uber, and we share a deep belief in the power of technology to change people’s lives for the better,” said Khosrowshahi. “Of course, we are also competitors. And while we won’t agree on everything going forward, we agree that Uber’s acquisition of Otto could and should have been handled differently.”

The suit revolved around Uber’s purchase of Otto, another autonomous driving company that has developed self-driving trucks. The case involved the charge that some Google information was brought to Waymo.

“The prospect that a couple of Waymo employees may have inappropriately solicited others to join Otto, and that they may have potentially left with Google files in their possession, in retrospect, raised some hard questions,” Khosrowshahi said.