NEW YORK – A judge asked federal prosecutors to investigate Uber Technologies Inc. and one of its engineers for potential theft of trade secrets from Google, heightening the stakes of a legal battle between Uber and Google parent Alphabet Inc. over driverless-car technology.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco referred the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office to investigate Alphabet’s allegations that one of its former engineers colluded with Uber to steal 14,000 Google documents related to self-driving cars before joining Uber. “The Court takes no position on whether a prosecution is or is not warranted, a decision entirely up to the United States Attorney,” the judge wrote.
Judge Alsup also temporarily blocked a limited part of Uber’s driverless-car program, which Google alleges benefited from the stolen trade secrets. Also Thursday, Judge Alsup determined that the lawsuit Google filed against Uber would head to trial instead of arbitration, dealing a blow to Uber’s legal strategy.
To read the rest of this story in the Wall Street Journal, click on https://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-asks-federal-prosecutors-to-investigate-ubers-driverless-car-program-1494559677?mod=djemalertTECH
