Google slams Uber for ‘stealing its self-driving car technology’ in huge lawsuit that could be worth $1.5billion
Sister firm Waymo, which develops driverless tech, says it only found out about 'calculated theft' in an email blunder
TAXI giant Uber has been accused by Google of stealing its self-driving car technology in a shock lawsuit that could be worth $1.5BILLION.
Waymo, Google's sister car tech firm, says Uber employees in its Otto self-driving start-up lifted huge chunks of technical info from them.
And the alleged "calculated theft" only emerged when Waymo was accidentally sent an email showing an Uber circuit board with a "striking resemblance" to its own design, they claim.
In court documents the company said: "Fair competition spurs new technical innovation, but what has happened here is not fair competition".
It added: "Otto and Uber have taken Waymo’s intellectual property so that they could avoid incurring the risk, time, and expense of independently developing their own technology.”
And it says Uber could have made up to $500million, worth nearly £400m, from the supposed theft — which they want back THREEFOLD.
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Waymo has requested "significant damages" to be awarded by the court in San Francisco, including the "trebling" of the amount cost to the company by what it called Uber's "unlawful conduct".
The complaint named Anthony Levandowski, a former manager at Google's self-driving car unit, who downloaded over 14,000 confidential files before quitting.
He went on to be appointed the head Uber's self-driving arm last year.
"Misappropriating this technology is akin to stealing a secret recipe from a beverage company", Waymo said on its website.
"We believe these actions were part of a concerted plan to steal Waymo’s trade secrets and intellectual property", it added.
The Sun has contacted Uber for comment but it is yet to respond.
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