On Monday afternoon, San Francisco will play host to a Clash of the Titans as two of the biggest and best-known companies in the world go head-to-head in court.
Last February, Google owner Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) filed a lawsuit against Uber, claiming that the ride-hailing app had stolen patents and trade secrets relating to its Waymo self-driving technology unit.
READ: Take a ride! Alphabet sues Uber over self-driving technology
At the time, Waymo said Uber’s designs for an autonomous car shared a “striking resemblance” with its own.
Weirdly, the allegations stemmed from an email sent from one of Uber’s component suppliers who “apparently inadvertently” copied in members of the Waymo team on an email.
The email reportedly contained various images and drawings of Uber’s Otto technology and its 3D sensors which contained Alphabet trade secrets, according to the company.
Who is Anthony Levandowski?
At the heart of the case is Anthony Levandowski – one of Waymo’s former engineers – who is said to have “downloaded more than 14,000 highly confidential and proprietary files shortly before his resignation”.
He founded Otto after he left Google, which Uber then went on to buy for US$680mln less than a year later.
READ: Uber sacks self-drive boss
It made for a good story at the time: young engineer leaves Google, sets up his own business from scratch and sells it a few months later for hundreds of millions.
But Waymo argues that the whole process was more of a charade and that Uber’s founder and former boss Travis Kalanick was in talks with Levandowski before he left Google.
There’s a good chance Waymo will call Levandowski to the stand but, given that he’s so far only “pleaded the fifth”, don’t expect too much.
‘Eight trade secrets stolen’
For its part, Uber has never denied that documents were taken, but it has insisted that it gained nothing from them whatsoever. That is something that Waymo will be looking to disprove in court.
In the original lawsuit, Waymo claimed that 121 trade secrets and patents had been stolen, although it has since reduced this down to just eight.
The company says that is because a trial with so many judgements – each secret has to be individually ruled on – would take years to complete. Uber argues that the sharp reduction shows how flimsy the case against it is.
What are the possible outcomes?
There are several possible outcomes from this trial should the jury find Uber guilty of stealing trade secrets.
First up would be a massive damages award – perhaps in excess of US$1bn. Alternatively, the courts could apply an injunction stopping Uber’s self-driving programme altogether.
Most commentators think both of those are extreme scenarios, with the most likely outcome being that any injunction would only apply to whichever trade secrets were adjudged to have been infringed.
Of course, the jury could also find Uber not guilty and that would be that.
Google shares were off 0.8% at US$1,102.30 early on Monday.