The car broker Uber uses in his robot car project apparently still technology of the Google sister company Waymo. An expert came to this conclusion, said Uber without further details in his quarterly report.
Waymo had accused Uber of theft of ideas. Both sides had actually settled the dispute last year. Part of the agreement, however, was the use of the independent expert, who should check Uber's technology.
He has now found that some functions of the robot cart software by Uber infringe intellectual property of Waymo, it says in the quarterly report. This could mean license payments to Waymo - or Uber would have to change its technology. This could require a lot of time and effort and further delay the market maturity of robot technology.
Waymo said the company will continue to take all necessary steps to ensure that Uber's confidential information is not used by Uber.
Allegations against Google Engineer
The focus of the dispute is the technology of the so-called laser radar - the rotating devices with which the vehicles scan their surroundings. One of the leading specialists, who first developed the technology for the Google robot cars and then for the newly founded sister company Waymo, is Anthony L.
He left Waymo in early 2016 and founded the self-propelled truck start-up Otto, which was purchased by Uber a few months later for $ 680 million. L. then became the head of Uber's robot car program.
In February 2017, Waymo Uber sued and said that L. had downloaded 14,000 documents before leaving. Uber always denied that the confidential documents had ever reached the driver-agent.
The robotic car from Uber is also controversial because one of the cars killed a woman riding a bike over a multi-lane road during a test drive last year. After finding US accident investigators, the Uber software realized too late that it would come to collision.