In a strongly worded ruling on Thursday, a federal judge presiding over an intellectual property fight between Uber and Waymo, the self-driving car unit spun out of Google, said jurors in a coming trial may be told that Uber has been withholding key evidence.

The trial, in United States District Court in San Francisco, is not expected to start until October, but Judge William Alsup did little to hide his frustration with the resistance or inability of Uber and its lawyers to hand over evidence in a pretrial discovery process, according to a hearing transcript provided by the court.

“You misled the judge time and time again,” Judge Alsup told Arturo González, Uber’s outside counsel from the law firm Morrison & Foerster.

The trial is one of the most important courtroom fights for the tech industry in years, and its outcome could affect the future of driverless car technology.