Waymo's lawsuit against Uber is delayed to December
The legal fight over self-driving cars will wait a bit longer.
Waymo's lawsuit against Uber over self-driving cars is getting delayed.
Waymo is getting its wish for more time to prepare for its legal battle against Uber.
US Judge William Alsup granted Waymo's request Tuesday to postpone the trial to Dec. 4 from its previous Oct. 10 date, which it wanted in order to take more time to review evidence.
The lawsuit concerns self-driving car technology that Waymo alleges was stolen when a former Google employee left and joined Uber. (Waymo was spun out from Google in December 2016 and operates separately under the Alphabet parent company.)
Google says that Anthony Levandowski stole 14,000 "highly confidential" files before he left in January 2016 to found his own self-driving startup named Otto. Uber then purchased Otto for $680 million in August of that year.
A Waymo spokesperson told CNET that the company welcomes the court's ruling.
"New evidence continues to come to light through thousands of documents and hundreds of previously unexamined devices that Defendants are only now turning over," Waymo said in its statement. "We are reviewing these materials and look forward to presenting our case at trial."
Uber said in its own statement that the company is ready to go to trial now.
"The Court has made clear that Waymo's case is not what they hoped, and that more time will not change the hard fact that their trade secrets never came to Uber. We're ready to go to trial now, and will be ready after this very brief continuance."
First published Oct. 3, 2:03 p.m. PT.
Update 2:07 p.m.: Added comment from Uber.
Dara Kerr contributed to this report.