Most Waymo Patent Claims Dropped in Autonomous Car Fight with Uber

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-07/waymo-drops-most-patent-claims-in-autonomous-car-fight-with-uber

by pfarnsworth • 9 years ago

162 107 9 years ago

Does anyone know if those 14k files have any evidence linking to Uber's design? If there is no wrongdoing, Uber should continue to figure out autonomous cars as a service model.

moomin• 9 years ago

I imagine google think they have, but the truth is, a document saying that approach X does not work would save anyone who read it a lot of money. And the only thing you'd see in the final design was that it didn't use X.

idibidiart3• 9 years ago

Misleading title. Makes it sound like they were wrong and are backing off. The patents being dropped are those which Uber is no longer using but was using at some point in their prototypes. There remains one key patent that Uber is still using and Alphabet is still suing them for it.

sctb2• 9 years ago

Thanks, we've updated the title slightly to clarify.

azylman3• 9 years ago

Google's spin is that they're dropping them because they're no longer using them, but the reality is that the judge has told them they're wrong:

Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court in San Francisco, who is overseeing the case, urged the company’s lawyers at a hearing on June 7 to drop the patent claims because "you’re going to lose on all these patent claims unless you pull some rabbit out of a hat."

idibidiart3• 9 years ago

"you’re going to lose on all these patent claims ..." because Uber is no longer using them.

Waiting to be asked by the judge to drop them is the only valid political chess move they had. Withdrawing them without being asked would be worse, IMO. But the reason remains the same: Uber used to have them in their design/prototypes but they no longer do.

iamleppert• 9 years ago

It seems to me, that Waymo/Google has no real interest in their self-driving car program.

Anthony Levandowski went to Uber because he is interested in furthering self-driving car technology into practical applications and Uber offered to actually, really prioritize his project and make his dreams a reality. That's the only logical explanation of his actions; he thought Uber would be a better technology and business partner.

Setting aside the legal issues of whether what he did was right or not, I don't think Google would be the right custodian of this project anyway. For the greater good of the world, we need self-driving cars to become a reality.

And Google just isn't going to do it. They are invested in self-driving cars like they are invested in contact lenses, or drones, or robots, or go-playing AI, and half-dozen other things. Uber was/is a far more logical choice for a company that is going to be both motivated and pragmatic enough to bring this technology to market.

Google has been working on it for ages and we have yet to see a serious attempt at a non-academic implementation.

kartD• 9 years ago

Umm, Waymo has an early rider program... https://waymo.com/apply/

I don't see how they have no interest, none of their other projects were upgraded to separate company status. Also, they've been working on it for 10+ years so it's outlasted most of their other "projects"

pishpash• 9 years ago

Google has been working on it for ages and we have yet to see a serious attempt at a non-academic implementation.

I trust Google way more than Uber to do something like this right (i.e. not kill people), even if it takes "forever."

gxs• 9 years ago

As much as I personally dislike Google, I have to agree with you here.

joshuamorton• 9 years ago

(I work at google)

Google has been working on it for ages and we have yet to see a serious attempt at a non-academic implementation.

This seems like a claim made without knowledge. The 2016 autonomous vehicle disengagement reports [0][1] show that Waymo is an order of magnitude ahead of any competitor in miles driven and vehicle reliability. And as another user mentioned, Waymo is currently testing with real consumers and a large fleet of vehicles in Phoenix [2].

[0] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disen...

[1] https://www.wired.com/2017/02/california-dmv-autonomous-car-...

[2] https://waymo.com/apply/

scottLobster• 9 years ago

Greed is another logical explanation. I don't buy the narrative of Levandowski as some tortured idealist who just wanted his dream to shit rainbows, and Google as the neglectful parent stifling his creative growth. If that was the case he would have stuck with Otto for more autonomy.

I think Google just understands the complexity of the issue presented by true self-driving cars. I'm still highly skeptical that they're going to become a thing outside of cities and major highways anytime soon, there are simply too many edge cases to cover. That's not to say it's impossible, but Google is clearly shooting for pure self-driving cars that don't need a steering wheel, or something close to that, prior to any commercial application. Tesla and Uber are taking more iterative approaches, but they can directly benefit from mediocre/incomplete self-driving in the meantime whereas there's no incentive for Google. We'll see who gets to the holy grail first, but I wouldn't discount Google. Large-scale, public, iterative approaches, while the dominant religion in modern tech, are not a panacea.

clvcooke• 9 years ago

I forget where I read this (somewhere on HN most likely), but there is a major difference between what Google/Waymo is doing and their competion. It all goes back to the DARPA days; The waymo approach is a hybrid one, its terrain detection using LiDAR as well as visual based systems. To see and "understand" the environment using a mix of these technologies is very different than what, say Tesla is doing, which is using cameras to do what is basically advanced lane following (although it is still fantastic technology). I believe that its this dichotomy in approaches which causes what people interpret as Waymo falling behind, or well, not being as ahead as they once were. Many other companies are catching up using visual based systems, but I believe there is a wall they will hit, where they will need to go through a major iteration of their technology to match what Waymo is currently doing.

AnimalMuppet• 9 years ago

TL;DR: Not much real change. "Most" is "3 out of 4". That's not quite as dramatic as the headline makes it sound. Also note that the case is primarily about trade secrets, not patents.

mmanfrin• 9 years ago

Title feels a little clickbaity, as it was a request from the Judge prior to going to a Jury:

  U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco has asked 
  Waymo to narrow its more than 100 trade secrets claims to 
  fewer than 10 to put in front of a jury.

sillysaurus33• 9 years ago

Reformatted for mobile users:

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco has asked Waymo to narrow its more than 100 trade secrets claims to fewer than 10 to put in front of a jury.

austenallred• 9 years ago

@dang/HN team: Considering how often snippets are used on HN, is there another way to format those on mobile?

Thanks for all you do!

yohann305• 9 years ago

totally. My first thoughts while reading the title was "oh now that's a 90 degree turn, patents are bogus". Turn out the title is... oh well, this is kind of a fake news, it's everywhere, even on HN. What a wonderful world

edit: the title has been edited since.

myth_buster• 9 years ago

Uber's response to it is even more baffling!

"Waymo’s retreat on three of their four patent claims is yet another sign that they have overpromised and can’t deliver," Uber said in a statement. "Not only have they uncovered zero evidence of any of the 14,000 files in question coming to Uber, they now admit that Uber’s LiDAR design is actually very different than theirs. Faced with this hard truth, Waymo has resorted to floating conspiracy theories not rooted in fact, doing everything they can to put the focus on sensation rather than substance."

epmaybe2• 9 years ago

Is it baffling? They're doing what they can to influence the public (and jury, as impartial as they will try to make it).

jerf• 9 years ago

mmanfrin quotes a bit about trade secret claims. You're quoting something about patent claims. That should help de-baffle it.

No harshness intended. This is complicated stuff, no sarcasm.

orblivion• 9 years ago

This is straight up Donald Trump.

acdx• 9 years ago

The relevant quote from the judge is:

    I want to reiterate to the plaintiff here that you should think a lot
    about just dropping the patent part of this case.

Corence• 9 years ago

My understanding is that there are two parts to this suit: patent infringement and trade secrets. You can't patent a trade secret (then it wouldn't be secret), so these are two independent things.

Alsup was suggesting Waymo to drop the patent portion of their suit and focus solely on the trade secret portion of their case. The trade secrets were pared down as mentioned in that snippet, but that's in addition to dropping 3 of the 4 patent infringement claims.

azylman3• 9 years ago

Note that the reason he told them to drop the trade secret claims is because they're kind of ridiculous:

the judge scolded Waymo for being "overbroad" in what it says are 121 trade secrets involved in the case. For example, Alsup wrote that Waymo can't claim that the way it positions light sources in its Lidar is protected, since the design uses well-known principles of physics.

wand3r2• 9 years ago

Google is going to increase or fully acquire Uber. Uber has virtually no management in place right now and I could hypothetically see that clearing being pragmatic for the social reasons, but potentially part of a deal with Google for business ones. Maybe they will reach a settlement before this goes to court. This is obviously unfounded speculation but a few other points

whole C suite is pretty much gone

Uber is integrated into Gmaps. Currently running an existing user promo for $15 if executed through maps.

Whole Uber team has apparently trained on Googles tech already so on boarding will be easier

It's Googles core competency

They already own a smallish percentage

They seem to be focused on production, key exec was let go from Ford for wrecking a Frenemy partnership trade of AI / Tech for Ford production expertise. They have the synergy with Gmaps, much of the AI and prototyping with Waymo and they can turn around the negative sentiment. They need the network short term to ramp up whatever their play is for the future.

I can see this being reasonable. Uber is a financial mess with limited upside if this case goes south and is only attractive to a few buyers. Google, already being an investor is one of they few Incs with the knowledge and capital to actually get value from this cash fire.

throwaway91111• 9 years ago

Doesn't waymo already have a deal to supply self driving cars to lyft? What would they get from Uber but a competing service?

The brand seems like a liability in this case.

Hell, if anything, i'd use this to force Uber to license the cars from Waymo, too.

macspoofing2• 9 years ago

They would drop lyft.

The brand seems like a liability in this case.

Cheaper to buy.

draw_down• 9 years ago

You guys are funny.

LeoNatan253• 9 years ago

With much of the sexual impropriety stories at Uber, is it really a good PR move for Google to go ahead with such acquisition?

dragonwriter6• 9 years ago

With much of the sexual impropriety stories at Uber, is it really a good PR move for Google to go ahead with such acquisition?

Maybe; the problem is an HR/management one, which an acquisition in which upper management and HR are largely replaced and lower management is scrutinized under a microscope could probably resolve quickly to prevent any ongoing issues, and not keeping the Uber name in use would deal with most of the public image issues.

giancarlostoro3• 9 years ago

Was it a good step for Google to buy YouTube back when it was full of (way more) pirated music, movies and tv show episodes? I remember at least one article that questioned Google for buying YouTube back then, calling them out for the piracy.

smsm42• 9 years ago

Why not? They are not complicit in this, and they can have legitimate claim to clean it up. And even some credit for the future, where they can treat new cases as "remnants from the old management". Of course, that credit will expire, but not immediately.

wonder_bread3• 9 years ago

"Google is going to increase or fully acquire Uber."

Talk about a "God's View", they'd be literally begging for regulator's attention if they tried buying Uber

CamperBob2• 9 years ago

So now's the time to do it, in other words.

dragonwriter6• 9 years ago

they'd be literally begging for regulator's attention if they tried buying Uber

How so? Regulatory attention of mergers isn't based on prospective dominance of markets which don't yet exist, in most jurisdictions.

stale2002• 9 years ago

I am not so sure.

Google and uber don't directly compete in many areas.

In order for regulators to stop the deal, there would have to be a competitive concern.

The only area that they "compete" in is self driving cars. But that market literally doesn't exist yet, so it is a hard argument to make that this would be anticompetitive.

joe_the_user2• 9 years ago

How would Google deal with Uber's massively inflated $69 billion valuation?

Would investors who bought shares be compensated with pennies on the dollar? Would some investors get more than others?

What motivates people to put in money at these absurd valuations? The hope that they'll come true just some of the time?

resf• 9 years ago

Uber shareholders may find pennies on the dollar to be preferable to bankruptcy.

jandrese• 9 years ago

Let them be sued into bankruptcy and then pick up the pieces afterward?

bduerst2• 9 years ago

If Uber is like the other unicorn companies, the investors that gave it the massive valuation have shareholder agreements that allow them to get paid before everyone else does. Anyone with common shares (e.g. employees, etc.) would get virtually nothing.

vm• 9 years ago

The investors don't control the company. Only the board does. Sometimes that includes investors but it definitely doesn't control all of them. The board is required to do what's best for ALL shareholders, even if that means lower returns for some of them.

Uber raised $9B (1). Presumably this is all preferred stock or convertible debt, which is paid out 100% in an acquisition. That means investors only lose money and if Uber is acquired for under $9B. Over $9B, then investors and common shareholders splits the proceeds according to their ownership (2).

I'm simplifying as the liquidation preference matters based on the different valuations that investors paid.

For example, if Uber is acquired for $30B, then all the investors who paid above that valuation, would get their money back first. Then remaining investors and common shareholders would get their % split of the remaining pool of capital.

1) https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber#/entity

2)Usually this is how it works, but sometimes the terms vary.

Fricken2• 9 years ago

Uber would totally be worth 70 Billion as an Alphabet subsidiary, but there's no way Alphabet would acquire it for that price. Put Susan Wocjicki in charge of Uber, and have her pull a Stephen Elop routine to drive down Uber's valuation to something Alphabet can afford. Then just rebrand the whole thing as Waymo.

zitterbewegung• 9 years ago

Or, Google could do nothing and let Uber fail. Lyft would probably pick out the good employees. All of the drivers would just stop using the Uber app since many use both or could easily switch. The C suite would be gone by this point. At this point once self driving tech is perfected Lyft would just buy it from Google.

lacksconfidence• 9 years ago

comparing https://www.lyft.com/cities to https://www.uber.com/cities/ it seems like there is a huge discrepancy between the cities that have lyft and those that have uber. Uber has a significant international availability.

pm902• 9 years ago

Meh, why would they? Better buy would be Lyft, and then just pour money and crush Uber completely.

dragonwriter6• 9 years ago

Meh, why would they?

I think the suggestion is based on an anticipated Uber firesale price resulting from its recent legal and HR issues.

askafriend• 9 years ago

Uber relies on Google Maps for now, but they are building out their own mapping solution in increasingly more countries and have reportedly made huge investments in mapping.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/31/12338268/uber-maps-invest...

yellow_postit• 9 years ago

Uber applies some ridiculous optimizations to their map and routing often times ending a trip while in blocks away from where I need to be and leaving a confused driver (and frustrated passenger). Lyft never has this issue.

frahs• 9 years ago

Waymo has a partnership with lyft right now, so that would be pretty tricky

fooey• 9 years ago

Seems like Uber's wanton disregard for law makes them a gigantic liability bomb that no big company is going to want to acquire.

jaypaulynice2• 9 years ago

With GV being an investor in Uber, the whole lawsuit seems very weird. Any GV partners on Uber's board? How did they not know?

I'm not sure Google wants to manage a large network of freelancers/drivers without benefits. Would look terrible when the software engineers have all the benefits...then again they could offer benefits for drivers...

I think Facebook or Apple (maybe Amazon) might want a piece of the pie. The integration would be seamless...then again who knows!

sillysaurus33• 9 years ago

Reformatted for mobile users:

EDIT: The parent edited their comment, so I've removed my reply, as it's no longer necessary.

This seems like a valuable service, and I'd like to continue doing this, but perhaps I'll add a disclaimer asking people not to talk about HN in the replies to minimize noise. If you have questions or concerns about the site, please email hn@ycombinator.com rather than leaving a comment.

cardiffspaceman• 9 years ago

As a desktop user with a 30" monitor I also appreciate this reformatting. The other method of quoting renders in monospaced font that looks bad.

gregw134• 9 years ago

Come on hacker news, fix your css.

dragonwriter6• 9 years ago

The CSS is correct. Abusing code formatting for quotes is the problem.

(The fact that HN has no dedicated markup for quotes and very little available markup at all is also a problem, but using code blocks for quotes is not a solution, or even a good workaround, for that.)

sctb2• 9 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720569 and marked it off-topic.

sillysaurus33• 9 years ago

Thanks! I don't know whether to keep doing this or not so if you have an opinion one way or the other, let me know.

The community seems to appreciate it, but on the other hand it adds noise. Though one benefit is that it nudges users toward using italics for quotes instead of code blocks.

Fricken2• 9 years ago

The trade secrets part of the case supposedly has legs, just not very long ones given Uber didn't use the trade secrets Levandowski supposedly stole.

When Waymo first levied the case against Uber I was of the unpopular opinion that it wasn't as strong as it looked. Nonetheless, it ruined Levandowski's career and counted for about a gallon's worth of gasoline on the fire of negative public opinion and investor rage against Uber and it's leadership. Even if Waymo loses in court, it's still a win.

justicezyx• 9 years ago

it ruined Levandowski's caree

How so? Like saying police ruined a criminal's normal life?...

Most Waymo Patent Claims Dropped in Autonomous Car Fight with Uber

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