Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies, Inc; Ottomotto LLC; Otto Trucking LLC
Case Filing Date: February 27, 2017 | Court Name: United States District Court for the Northern District of California
Battle of Self-Driving Cars
Waymo LLC, a self-driving car startup under Alphabet (originally known as Google’s Self-Driving Car Project), filed a complaint in California’s Northern District accusing Uber of violating the Defense of Trade Secrets Act and the California Uniform Trade Secret Act, as well as patent infringement. Waymo alleges that a former Google employee, Anthony Levandowski, secretly downloaded 14,000 files of “highly confidential data” from Google’s hardware systems before resigning a month later and launching a self-driving truck startup called Otto. Uber acquired Otto in August 2016 and put Levandowski in charge of its self-driving efforts. Waymost alleges that Levandowski used the information from Google’s system to launch Otto.
The complaint very specifically names the ways in which Levandowski stole the data. The data revolves around a key piece of technology called LiDAR (“Light Detection and Ranging”), which uses high-frequency, high-power pulsing lasers to measure distances between one or more sensors and external objects to build a detailed map of the environment around the car. Waymo has invested millions in its own LiDAR hardware and alleges that Levandowski misappropriated this data in developing Otto and working for Uber.
Filed complaint: http://nyti.ms/2mMwBcA
Case Filing Date: January 4, 2017 | Court Name: Northern District of California
Court Grants Ex Parte Seizure Order In Part under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA)
Defendants Richard Sultanov (“Sultanov”) and Paul Ostling (“Ostling,” collectively, “Defendants”) are former employees of OOO Brunswick Rail Management (“BRM”), a Russian limited liability company. In the Complaint, filed on January 4, 2017, BRM and Brunswick Rail Group Limited (“BRL”) (collectively “Brunswick”) allege that both Sultanov and Ostling misappropriated trade secrets throughout November and December 2016 citing the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) 18 U.S.C. Section 1836 et. seq. as a basis for federal jurisdiction. On this same day, Brunswick filed an ex parte application for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) requesting seizure of Defendants’ property containing Brunswick’s trade secrets currently in Defendants’ possession.
Brunswick alleges further that after observing Sultanov’s behavior, which the court describes as “unusually secretive,” Brunswick reviewed his work email account and found that he had “sent several confidential documents to his personal email account without authorization; he then deleted the sent messages and emptied his trash folder.” In its ex parte application, Brunswick asserts that “Sultanov and Ostling have already disclosed and plan to continue to disclose the trade secrets to creditors in order to disadvantage Brunswick in its ongoing negotiations related to Brunswick’s debt restructuring.” In reviewing Brunsick’s ex parte application, the court found that the record reveals Sultanov was communicating by phone with Ostling (a former employee of Brunswick) and a new representative of one of Brunswick’s creditors, “whom Sultanov was explicitly prohibited from contacting.” Brunswick’s investigation also brought to light that Ostling received “unauthorized confidential materials at his personal email account (via his former personal assistant, who remained at Brunswick), which he then forwarded to the creditor’s representative and to Sultanov.” Brunswick request return of its “company-issued mobile phone and laptop,” but Sultanov has refused to comply.
In its decision, issued January 6, 2017, the court granted Brunwick’s motion in part and denied in part. The court ordered Rackspace, Inc. and Google, Inc. to preserve all data in Defendants’ email accounts. The court also directed Defendants to appear before the court to show cause why a preliminary injunction should not be issued against them and “to bring the electronic devices issued to [Sultanov] by Brunswick, including mobile phones and laptops” to surrender to the custody of the court.
UPDATE:
In subsequent motion practice, the court considered Sultanov’s motion to dismiss filed on March 9, 2017. First, Sultanov argued that the court lacked both general and specific personal jurisdiction over him. Second, Sultanov asserted that his use of gmail did not confer specific personal jurisdiction over him, that his data is not in California nor would it matter if it were, and Google’s terms of service also do not confer personal jurisdiction over Sultanov. Finally, Sultanov argued that exercising specific personal jurisdiction over him is not reasonable because he is a Russian citizen living in Moscow, Russia.
On June 6, 2017, the court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss without leave to amend because Brunswick failed to make a prima facie showing that personal jurisdiction exists. The court examined a $13,000 deposit in Sultanov’s California checking account from Ostling around the same time as his alleged misconduct. The court posited that the “timing raises questions about the nature of the payment and its connection to the events underlying Brunswick’s allegations.” In spite of this, the court held that “to establish personal jurisdiction in California, Brunswick must show more than the fact that Sultanov received a payment at a bank account that is associated with an address in Monterey. Despite having had the opportunity to conduct jurisdictional discovery— including discovery of Sultanov’s bank accounts and other financial information—Brunswick has not established that the claims in this case arise out of the payment from Ostling.” Upon reaching its decision, the court directed the clerk to close to case.
Complaint: http://tsi.brooklaw.edu/cases/ooo-brunswick-rail-mgt-et-al-v-sultanov-et-al/filings/complaint
Seizure Order: http://tsi.brooklaw.edu/cases/ooo-brunswick-rail-mgt-et-al-v-sultanov-et-al/filings/ex-parte-seizure-order
Motion to Dismiss Order: http://tsi.brooklaw.edu/cases/ooo-brunswick-rail-mgt-et-al-v-sultanov-et-al/filings/motion-dismiss-order