SAN FRANCISCO—The federal judge overseeing the trade secret litigation between Google's Waymo division and Uber said today that he's likely to slap Uber with an injunction unless the company does more to produce the 14,000 documents allegedly stolen by its self-driving car chief, Anthony Levandowski.

"The court gave its order, a very clear order, as to what was supposed to be produced by March 31," said Google lawyer David Perlson at the beginning of an hour-long hearing in federal court. "They have not complied with the order, in numerous respects."

Perlson said no one from Uber came to look at the 14,000 documents that were allegedly stolen, even though Google made them available. "They haven't obtained anything from Mr. Levandowski personally."

"We’ve repeatedly asked them for a return of these 14k documents, and they basically ignored us," said Perlson. "A lot of that is due to the fact that Mr. Levandowski is not cooperating, on some baseless 5th Amendment privilege ground."

"We will demonstrate that those 14,000 files never made it to Uber," responded Uber lawyer Arturo Gonzalez. "Let me tell you what we've done to comply."

Gonzalez said that his law firm, together with forensic consultants, interviewed 85 people at Uber who used to work at Google, including 42 who worked in Google's automotive division. They also randomly searched computers and looked at the engineers' Git director but couldn't find any of the files.

"We searched 12 terabytes of data in two weeks," said Gonzalez. "That's the equivalent of 8.3 billion pages of text. So any suggestion that we’re not looking is extremely unfair."

"We found 3,100 hits," he continued. "But you know what? They're not substantive. Most of these 14,000 documents are not trade secrets at all."

“Not denying it”

That argument didn't find favor with US District Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing the case. Whether the files are trade secrets or not, they were "important enough."

"Well, why did he take [them] then?" demanded Alsup. "He downloaded 14,000 files, he wiped clean the computer, and he took [them] with him. That's the record." He continued:

He’s not denying it. You're not denying it. No one on your side is denying he has the 14,000 files. Maybe you will. But if it's going to be denied, how can he take the 5th Amendment? This is an extraordinary case. In 42 years, I've never seen a record this strong. You are up against it. And you are looking at a preliminary injunction, even if what you tell me is true.

"We’re digging and we’re digging," said Gonzalez. "I firmly believe the reason we’re not finding this information is because it didn’t make it to Uber. The only thing the record shows so far is that 14,000 files may or may not have been taken. They have to show that we are using them."

"No, no, no," responded Alsup. "They made a showing that your lead person has 14,000 of their files. That could lead to a preliminary injunction that Mr. Levandowski cannot work on this project."

The hearing ended with Uber agreeing to a search of all relevant servers, using 15 search terms of Google's choice—and agreeing to Alsup's instruction that they search everyone at their company that has anything to do with LiDAR.

"Is that too hard?" Alsup asked rhetorically. "In a case this big? Where your company might get a preliminary injunction?"

"I don’t know how long it will take," said Gonzalez. "But I agree. It's an enormous number of servers."

The parties will reconvene tomorrow for another hearing, which will focus on Levandowski's recent argument that the Fifth Amendment should protect him from speaking about the 14,000 missing files. Levandowski, who is not a defendant in the case, has separate counsel who was present at the hearing today but didn't speak.

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