Google says it rarely sues — but it made an exception with Uber

Jefferson Graham | USA TODAY

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. — Google's parent company Alphabet rarely sues, says company Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat, but in its battle with Uber over the alleged theft of trade secrets, it had to, she added.

"So when we do sue, it's in our view so compelling, we have no option but to sue," said Porat at the Code conference here.

Moderator Kara Swisher asked Porat how she wanted the suit to turn out. "The right way," said Porat.

The case is scheduled to go to trial in the fall, but there has already been fallout.

The engineer at the center of the Waymo v. Google lawsuit — Anthony Levandowski, who Google alleges stole 14,000 sensor-focused documents before starting self-driving truck company Otto, which Uber bought for an estimated $680 million last summer — was fired by Uber on Tuesday.

And the judge in the case, William Alsup, has recommended that the U.S. attorney's office look into the matter for possible criminal charges related to the files.

Uber has maintained that its LiDAR, or light detection and range sensor, was built without any pilfered files, and countered that Waymo's suit was just an attempt to slow a competitor in the race to develop consumer-ready self-driving car technology.

During her Q&A, Porat also touched on the investment in Alphabet's "moonshots," big-bet looks at a future of self-driving cars, healthier lives and others.

She said she had no interest in pulling back. "What makes the company great is innovation....the cloud is one of the most extraordinary opportunities of our lifetime. If we're not investing now, we'll rue the day we didn't."

Porat talked up machine learning, especially pertaining to health care and self-driving cars. Automation "can analyze so much more data than the best doctor can see," she said.

The push for self-driving cars is "an opportunity to save lives," she said, and transform cities. "In our view, this is a real positive investment in safety."