The ride services company failed to remove the ongoing case from public view and now faces the prospect of getting caught up in a fresh criminal probe. The acrimonious trade secrets battle could determine the future of Uber's self-driving car operations and the strength of Waymo's toehold in the sector. Levandowski, who is not a defendant in the civil case, subsequently co-founded self-driving truck start-up Otto that was acquired months later by Uber. Uber declined to comment on Alsup's request for a separate criminal investigation into the theft allegations. The Alphabet unit asked Alsup to issue an injunction preventing Uber from using Waymo's trade secrets, and Levandowski from working on Lidar.

Source: India Today May 12, 2017 07:18 UTC