Judge overseeing Waymo lawsuit seems to think Uber is hiding Levandowski’s work

In the latest development in Alphabet’s lawsuit against Uber over supposed theft of self-driving car technology, a judge is now asking Uber to detail exactly what Anthony Levandowski has been working on since he was hired…

Up to this point, Uber has mostly tried to use its current on-the-road prototypes as evidence to argue against Alphabet’s case. Axios reported last week that Uber’s argument was basically that it hasn’t been using Alphabet’s tech at all, and that somehow proves its innocence. It has instead been using LiDAR tech from Velodyne.

A judge, apparently, isn’t buying it. Rightfully, he wants to know exactly what Levandowski has been working on since he and his fellow Otto employees were picked up by the ride hailing company last year.

“Why would you hire this guy for $680 million if he’s not doing anything?” Judge William Alsup reportedly asked Uber during a hearing in San Francisco District court yesterday (via Axios). “It does leave the impression that you wrote around what Mr. Levandowski is working on all this time even if it didn’t lead to a prototype”

This lawsuit has been developing since February and Uber unsurprisingly denied Waymo’s claim that it stole self-driving technology not long after filing the lawsuit. Most recently, Waymo asked the court to stop Uber from using alleged stolen self-driving car tech, and began pushing for its lawsuit against Uber to be played out publicly.