Uber's driverless car ambitions dealt blow with court ruling

In the latest twist to the Uber saga, the taxi app group has been ordered by a California judge to return intellectual property belonging to the Google parent’s  self driving car business Waymo.

Waymo is suing Uber over allegations that a former employee – engineer Anthony Levandowski  -  stole trade secrets that were later used by Uber.

District Judge William Alsup’s ruling stated that Waymo had shown compelling evidence that he (Levandowski) had “pilfered” thousands of documents from the company.

The engineer has now been banned from certain work for Uber’s autonomous driving project.

But the judge did not order a shutdown of Uber’s self-driving unit – something, which analysts have said would have been far more of a blow to Uber.

Uber must now return the documents either to Waymo or the court by the end of May, it  was reported.

Driverless vehicles is big news at the moment and is likely to be the next big shift in transport tech, albeit some way off.

Today’s ruling comes as  Waymo has formed a partnership with US ride hailing business Lyft to develop driverless vehicles.

“Waymo holds today’s best self-driving technology, and collaborating with them will accelerate our shared vision of improving lives with the world’s best transportation,” Lyft has said.

Story by ProactiveInvestors