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Jury indicts former Google engineer for stealing trade secrets

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Jury indicts former Google engineer for stealing trade secrets

A federal grand jury indicted Anthony Levandowski, a former executive at Waymo LLC, for stealing self-driving trade secrets from former employer Google LLC before joining Uber Technologies Inc.

At the time of his resignation, Levandowski was heading Google's Light Detecting and Ranging engineering team. The indictment charges Levandowski with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets.

The indictment claims that in the months before his departure, Levandowski downloaded numerous engineering, manufacturing and business files related to Google's custom LiDAR and self-driving car technology. The files downloaded included circuit board schematics, instructions for installing and testing LiDAR and an internal tracking document.

The indictment also alleges that at the time he took the files, Levandowski was involved with two companies competing with Google in the self-driving space: Tyto Lidar LLC and 280 Systems Inc., the latter of which would become Ottomotto. Ottomotto purchased Tyto in May 2016, shortly after Uber agreed to buy Ottomotto and hire Levandowski.

Levandowski pleaded not guilty to the charges through one of his lawyers at an arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins in San Jose, Calif., according to a report by Reuters.

In 2018, Uber resolved a lawsuit filed by Waymo over the alleged theft of trade secrets.