This article is from the WeChat public account: car stuff (ID: chedongxi) , author: James, Xiao Han
The “Autonomous Driving First Case” finally came to fruition.
According to foreign media Reuters, Anthony Levandowski, a former employee of Google Brothers Waymo, (Chinese name Lewandowski) local time in March Plead guilty in a U.S. court on the 19th, acknowledging that he had stolen the company’s trade secrets before leaving office in December 2015.
The case is still under further trial. Foreign media reported that the crime could lead to Levandowski himself being sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Anthony Levandowski, a former Waymo employee, walks out of court
In 2017, Otto, a self-driving company founded by Wayvan’s veteran employee Levandowski, was valued by Uber for $ 680 million > After the acquisition, Waymo foundUber’s lidar for self-driving vehicles is “similar” to its own technology, and then sued Uber for allegedly stealing Waymo’s technology through Levandowski.
After a 1-year investigation and trial, Uber paid Waymo a 0.34% stake in 2018 to reach a settlement with it and promised not to use Waymo’s technology. Levandowski subsequently resigned from Uber.
Waymo’s dispute with Uber has been resolved, but Waymo is still suing Levandowski.
Waymo’s previous lawsuit filed in the United States courts showed that Levandowski downloaded 14,000 secret information before leaving office in late 2015 and stored it on his personal laptop, and opened those files after leaving office. Waymo believes that Levandowski leaked his technology to Uber through these documents. In addition, Waymo also accused Levandowski of stealing his employees in secret, which was fraud.
In 2018, Levandowski was charged with fraud and theft by US prosecutors and began a lengthy investigation and trial process.
According to the New York Times, in early March 2020, Levandowski was convicted of fraud by the court and required to pay Google $ 179 million. (About 1.268 billion yuan) .
In another U.S. trial on March 19, Levandowski pleaded guilty to stealing Waymo’s trade secrets or facing 30 months in prison.
Since the dispute emerged in 2017, Levandowski has denied stealing Waymo’s commercial secrets. At present, the information has indeed been stolen, and the case has finally come to an end.
Elder Waymo pleads guilty in court or faces 30 months in prison span>
On March 20, according to foreign media Reuters, former Waymo employee Levandowski pleaded guilty in a U.S. court and confessed to stealing trade secrets from Waymo. Levandowski may be sentenced to 30 months in prison for theft.
As part of the plea agreement, Levandowski acknowledged one of the 33 charges in exchange for prosecutors to waive the other 32 charges. He acknowledged that a spreadsheet file had been downloaded from Waymo before leaving, stored on a personal laptop, and had been accessed after leaving.
According to the Washington Post, this spreadsheet file is called “Chauffeur TL Weekly Updates — Q4 2015.” Court documents show that this document contains Waymo’s quarterly goals, weekly goals, and Levandowski’s team goals and key results. The table also summarizes the technical challenges facing the team and some difficulties that have been overcome.
To facilitate the sentencing of judges, the court evaluated the value of documents taken by Levandowski, which were between $ 550,000 and $ 1.5 million. (Approximately RMB 3.85 million to RMB 105 million). .
Levandowski while working at Uber
After signing a plea agreement, Levandowski’s lawyer said: “Levandowski accepts the charges and looks forward to resolving the issue. He is a talented young man who has contributed significantly to the development of artificial intelligence and autonomous driving. We hope This will allow him to move on and focus on the most important things. “
20In August 19, the Prosecutor’s Office for the Northern District of California charged Levandowski with 33 thefts and stole Waymo’s 14,000 documents related to trade secrets.
After leaving Waymo, Levandowski founded self-driving startup Otto, and then sold the company to Uber. In other words, Uber may have grasped Waymo’s self-driving trade secrets.
The departure caused a dispute between Waymo and Uber, which lasted more than 3 years
Waymo and Uber have a long-standing dispute over autonomous driving technology. One of the important people is Levandowski.
Levandowski was born in 1980 and is now 40 years old. In 1998, he entered the University of California, Berkeley, and in 2003 he appeared on the school website as an outstanding student.
Levandowski joined Google in 2007 and founded the “510 System” startup. “510 System” is a pioneer in the use of lidar. In 2008, he founded Anthony’s Robots and drove the first car with a lidar rangefinder on public roads. In 2011, Google quietly acquired two startups, 510 Systems and Anthony ’s Robots.
In addition, according to the Washington Post, his startup Project Chauffeur was acquired by Google in 2009 and secretly developed self-driving technology, and then gradually developed into Google’s Waymo self-driving company. Before leaving in 2016, he has been the technical leader of Google’s autonomous driving department, and played a very important role in Google’s autonomous driving research and development process.
In January 2016, Levandowski resigned from Google ’s autonomous driving department at the time (Waymo was not split at that time) and established himself in February Otto’s self-driving startup, Levandowski, was also hired as an autonomous driving consultant by Kalanick, then Uber’s CEO.
Kalanick (left) and Levandowski (right), then Uber CEOs
There is nothing wrong with leaving, but the problem is that before leaving, Levandowski downloaded about 14,000 documents related to trade secrets from Google ’s server that stored self-driving data in December 2015 and stored them on personal laptops. .
What’s more coincident is that in August 2016, Uber immediately hit another $ 680 million sky-high price (about 4.8 billion yuan) The acquisition of Otto, Levandowski’s transformation also cost the technical leader of Uber’s autonomous driving business.
Facing so many coincidences, Waymo naturally didn’t sit still. Through internal investigation and evidence collection, he believes that Uber has stolen his own lidar and other technologies through Levandowski.
In the testimony of Waymo employee Pier-Yvez Droz, Levandowski privately met Brian McLandon, a former Google Maps business executive who had been poached by Uber in 2015. (Brian McClendon) , Levandowski also revealed to the employee his willingness to leave and start a new company, as well as Uber’s intention to purchase the Google Lidar R & D team.
In February 2017, Waymo filed a lawsuit against Otto and its parent company Uber, alleging patent infringement and stealing trade secrets.