The final details are falling into place as Waymo v. Uber approaches trial later this month. While Uber has been on the receiving end of plenty of harsh words from US District Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing the litigation, this week it became Waymo's turn to feel the heat—and face new limits on its case.

In an order (PDF) published yesterday, Alsup dismissed Otto Trucking, a holding company created by Anthony Levandowski, from the case. The judge stated on the record his suspicions that Waymo intended to improperly use the company as a stand-in for Levandowski, who is not a defendant in the case. The order also throws out one of Waymo's nine alleged trade secrets. Separately, Alsup will unveil an order tomorrow that apparently will kick out Waymo's damages expert.

The Waymo v. Uber litigation began in February , when Waymo accused Levandowski, the chief of Uber's self-driving car project, of stealing more than 14,000 files shortly before he resigned from Google. He founded a startup called Otto, which was sold to Uber within months for $680 million in stock and cash. Levandowski—who is, again, not a defendant in the case—has pleaded the Fifth Amendment and avoided answering questions about the accusations. Uber denies that any secrets ended up on the company's servers and says its lidar technology was built independently.

Otto Trucking occupies an odd place in the litigation. Uber acquired Otto's self-driving technology, but the trucking division was left as a separate entity. It "exists simply as a holding company to own trucks equipped with Velodyne’s LiDAR system," according to Alsup's order, and the company has separate counsel in the lawsuit.

Smoke and mirrors

Alsup expressed frustration that Waymo keeps "lumping [Otto Trucking] together with Uber and Levandowski under various unpersuasive theories." The judge finds it a "recurring problem" in the lawsuit that "Waymo repeatedly suggests that Otto Trucking should be deemed automatically liable for trade secret misappropriation by Levandowski" (emphasis in original).

He goes on to suggest that Waymo could improperly use Otto Trucking as a kind of "stand-in" for the acts of Levandowski, a person whom Waymo deliberately chose not to sue, for strategic reasons. Alsup writes:

Having made and benefitted from its strategic choice to not name Levandowski as a defendant, Waymo may not renege and suggest that Otto Trucking—or any other defendant—is somehow a stand-in for Levandowski, or that misappropriation by Levandowski is somehow automatically transmogrified into misrepresentation by Otto Trucking—or any other defendant—such that Waymo need not separately prove the latter. Waymo’s strongest evidence on misappropriation is about Levandowski, not about Otto Trucking, and as a result of its own litigation strategy, Waymo cannot treat the two as fungible targets.

The order goes on to remove one of Waymo's nine asserted trade secrets from the trial. In a partly redacted section, Alsup states that the secret, dubbed Trade Secret 96, isn't really a trade secret at all.

Waymo's evidence regarding number 96 is "merely a more detailed rendition of the evidence it had offered with respect to asserted trade secret number one—which claimed the concept of [REDACTED] on a printed circuit board in a LiDAR system," writes Alsup. An earlier order held that "Waymo’s asserted trade secret number one was 'nothing more than Optics 101,' deleting that supposed 'trade secret' from the case long before the parties began to argue over asserted trade secret number 96."

The trade secret has something to do with the Petzval surfaces for Waymo's transmit lenses. Waymo's expert, Dr. Lambertus Hesselink, compared Uber and Waymo transmit lenses with a series of parabolic graphs.

"Two identical lenses will always have identical Petzval surfaces—always," writes Alsup. "That proves nothing for Waymo... Dr. Hesselink’s emphasis on the similarity of the Petzval surfaces is a trick—smoke and mirrors."

Uber celebrated the recent ruling, with a company spokesperson writing via e-mail:

Waymo's case continues to shrink. After dropping their patent claims, this week Waymo lost one of the trade secrets they claimed was most important, had their damages expert excluded, and saw an entire defendant removed from the case—and all this before the trial has even started.

Waymo's take on the recent orders was also sent by a spokesperson via e-mail:

Physical inspections of Uber’s devices, as well as photos and CAD drawings received during discovery, show Uber is using Waymo’s trade secrets, including copying aspects of Waymo’s LiDAR designs down to the micron. Our case has always been principally against Uber and Ottomotto, and we look forward to presenting our evidence on multiple trade secrets at trial. We are also pleased that the Court expressly recognized the possibility of including Otto Trucking in any future injunction and/or potential subsequent trial.

Other Uber tactics to limit the trial didn't succeed. For instance, the ride-sharing company tried to get Waymo's trade secret number nine kicked out of the case, but that effort failed.

The Wagner order is set to be unveiled tomorrow. But the order about the unsealing has been published (PDF), and it's titled "Order excluding Michael Wagner, restricting use of financial evidence at trial, and denying other relief."