Uber has fired back at a lawsuit alleging it misappropriated trade secrets.
Waymo, a project of Google-parent Alphabet, filed a lawsuit filed in San Francisco court on Thursday, alleging that drawings of the 3-D sensors in Uber's self-driving cars contained Alphabet's trade secrets.
At the time, Uber told CNBC they would review the matter carefully. On Friday, in an updated statement, Uber said:
"We are incredibly proud of the progress that our team has made. We have reviewed Waymo's claims and determined them to be a baseless attempt to slow down a competitor and we look forward to vigorously defending against them in court. In the meantime, we will continue our hard work to bring self-driving benefits to the world." — Uber spokesperson
The lawsuit revolves around Anthony Levandowski, who left Google to launch a self-driving truck company called Otto, which went own to be acquired by Uber. The lawsuit claims Levandowski raided design servers and "downloaded more than 14,000 highly confidential and proprietary files shortly before his resignation."
"Misappropriating this technology is akin to stealing a secret recipe from a beverage company," Alphabet said in a statement.
Uber has ambitious plans for its self-driving cars. Earlier this month, CEO Travis Kalanick laid out his vision at a summit in Dubai.
"It sounds futuristic and sci-fi but that's where the world is going," Kalanick said.