Just before leaving Google, Levandowski downloaded 10GB of confidential material to his personal laptop, which is now being used by Uber. And Levandowski wasn't the only one, according to the subpoena:
A number of Waymo employees subsequently also left to join Anthony Levandowski's new business, downloading additional Waymo trade secrets in the days and hours prior to their departure. These secrets included confidential supplier lists, manufacturing details and statements of work with highly technical information, all of which reflected the results of Waymo's months-long, resource-intensive research into suppliers for highly specialized LiDAR sensor components.”
That Uber/Otto used secret material is said to be evident from an email that was accidentally cc'd to Waymo. It was recently announced that the case will start on December 4, 2017, and that Uber rejected a settlement offer of one billion .
What would have been downloaded (and used) falls into two things: intellectual property and trade secret. Intellectual property is the most inviolable: if someone else uses it without your permission, you can prohibit it. With trade secrets, it is a little different. There is both a global treaty and local regulations stating that you must take reasonable measures to protect your trade secrets. Dutch judges often translate that as: "there must at least be a confidentiality clause in the employment contract."
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According to the summons, Google has done one canada whatsapp number thing right: a confidentiality clause in the employment contract. This is often forgotten, and that can have negative consequences. In addition, Google had other measures such as a need-to-know basis, encryption, camera surveillance and security guards. So no one could legally access it.
Also read: Game over! Nintendo and the limits of intellectual property
To know or to have to know
Levandowski is not a party to this procedure, it is only between Waymo and Uber. According to the summons, the core seems to be: whether Uber knew or should have known that the founder of Otto had 'stolen' intellectual property/trade secrets from Google before its decision to buy Otto for 680 million. Uber at least has the appearance against it with those 680 million:
a remarkable sum for a company with few assets and no marketable product.”
The question is whether Google's problem with Uber will not solve itself: on March 26, Uber announced that it would temporarily stop testing self-driving cars due to a serious accident. Incidentally, Uber resumed testing a few days later. And Uber's sexist corporate culture ( which was eventually addressed ) has also led to a few accidents.