SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – Attorneys for Uber and Waymo clashed Wednesday over what evidence a federal jury will hear at an impending trial over whether Uber swiped its rival's driverless-car technology.
The outcome of the trial could set the stage for who will dominate the nation's nascent autonomous-car industry.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup focused the 3.5-hour hearing on two interrelated motions by Uber to exclude trial evidence involving Morrison & Foerster, one of the law firms representing it in the trade-secrets case.
The first request sought to keep the jury from seeing an April 2016 indemnification agreement involving Anthony Levandowski, the beleaguered autonomous car engineer at the center of the case. Uber agreed to indemnify Levandowski and his driverless car company Otto on potential trade secret misappropriation claims after it conducted a due-diligence review of them last year to decide whether to acquire Otto.
Waymo claims Uber learned during the review that Levandowski stole 14,000 confidential files related to its self-driving car technology before he resigned, and used them to develop technology for Otto. The company claims Uber then purchased Otto to fast-track its own driverless-car program.
Waymo did not name Levandowski as a defendant in its February suit.
Morrison & Foerster advised Uber during the due-diligence review, and purportedly had access to the stolen files.
But Waymo wants to show the jury the indemnification agreement, along with a February 2016 email discussing indemnifying Levandowski and Otto for "bad acts," including downloading Waymo's files. It says the evidence can help it prove Uber knew about the theft early on, which Alsup has called a key issue in the case.
Uber attorney Hamish Hume, however, told Alsup on Wednesday that the indemnification agreement doesn't prove that Uber knew about the theft – adding it would only confuse the jury.
"I thought about that, and Uber should've thought about that when Uber got itself into this mess," Alsup retorted, referring to how the agreement might look to a jury.
"Now that you're in that mess you want me to save you from it because it's hard to explain it away," he added before ruling the jury would see the agreement.
The battle over trial evidence is the latest salvo between the two Silicon Valley giants as they vie to be the first to bring self-driving cars to market. Analysts predict that autonomous cars will eventually replace driver-operated ones completely, and that companies late in developing the technology will flounder.
Uber's second request sought to exclude reference at trial to Morrison & Foerster's role in the Otto acquisition. Uber says the law firm's role is irrelevant, and that it doesn't plan to call anyone from the firm as a witness. Waymo, however, asked Alsup in a brief disqualify the firm as trial counsel.
Alsup compromised, tentatively ruling that attorneys for all parties must introduce themselves to the jury by first and last name only, and not identify their firms, noting that "MoFo [Morrison & Foerster] is an actor in the case and we can't tell the story to the jury and somehow call it Law Firm X."
He continued, "So my thought is not to disqualify anybody, but no-holds-barred when it comes to putting out the facts of the case.”
