You may have heard, this week on May 15, 2017, Judge William Alsup in the Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies, Inc. case (U.S. District Court, No. District of California) issued his Order Granting In Part and Denying In Part Plaintiff’s Motion For Provisional Relief, i.e., for a preliminary injunction. The Order is 26 pages. Plaintiff has brought multiple claims in the case including for trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement and unfair competition, but the Order is for preliminary injunction only on the trade secret misappropriation claim. The trade secret claim is brought under both the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act and the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act.

I’m not going to go through the evidence in this post – as indicated above, the Order is 26 pages in length. The Order states that it is narrowly-tailored to balance the interests of the parties and the public. In summary, the decision whether or not to grant a preliminary injunction is based on the evidence now available, the legal claims alleged, the now perceived likelihood of the plaintiff prevailing at trial on the relevant claim or claims, and the interests of the parties and the public. Preliminary injunction motions are significantly based on the strength of the evidence now available and presented and the Judge’s view of that evidence. In this instance, in my view based on the Court’s Order, there was strong evidence that trade secret information possibly was misappropriated, but either no evidence or not particularly strong evidence that Uber had involvement in that possible misappropriation or that Uber had access to or used that information.

Here’s where the Court’s Order gets interesting – in the scope of relief granted. I have pasted below the wording from the Scope of Relief Granted part of the Order. In short aside from the provisions pertaining to Mr. Levandowski, and certain expedited discovery granted, the Order essentially requires Uber to conduct an extensive investigation and to file and disclose a detailed report and account by June 23, 2017, which is a very, very short time to conduct the investigation. In my view it is questionable whether the extent of the investigation can be completed and written-up to be filed in that short of time. And, as you will note, the investigation also includes, or example, all communications with any officer, director, employee, agent, supplier, or consultant of defendants on the relevant topics. Thus, Uber is required to conduct discovery upon itself in the form of the report and account to be filed, and depending on the documents and information obtained the report and account could well bring individual officers, directors, employees, agents, suppliers and consultants personally into focus in the case – if they haven’t done so already, all of those people should be expansively reviewing their possible involvement, if any, in the issues that are involved in the case and consulting with legal counsel about their possible exposure to legal action and personal liability, and how they should proceed.

For your further reading, below is the Scope of Relief Granted provision from the Order.

Best to you. David Tate, Esq.

3. SCOPE OF RELIEF GRANTED.

Having considered the foregoing, the Court ORDERS as follows:

1. The term “downloaded materials,” as used in this provisional order, means any and all materials that Anthony Levandowski downloaded from Waymo and kept upon leaving Waymo’s employment, regardless of how long he kept them for and whether or not any such materials qualify as trade secrets or proprietary or confidential information.
2. Defendants must immediately and in writing exercise the full extent of their corporate, employment, contractual, and other authority to (a) prevent Anthony Levandowski and all other officers, directors, employees, and agents of defendants from consulting, copying, or otherwise using the downloaded materials; and (b) cause them to return the downloaded materials and all copies, excerpts, and summaries thereof to Waymo (or the Court) by MAY 31 AT NOON. Copies essential for counsel of record and their litigation experts to use in defending this civil action are exempted from the foregoing requirement.⁹
3. With respect to Anthony Levandowski, defendants shall immediately (a) remove him from any role or responsibility pertaining to LiDAR; (b) take all steps in their power to prevent him from having any communication on the subject of LiDAR with any officer, director, employee, agent, supplier, consultant, or customer of defendants; and (c) prohibit him from consulting, copying, or otherwise using the downloaded materials in any way. Defendants shall instruct all their officers, directors, employees, agents, suppliers, consultants, and customers in writing of this prohibition, and further instruct them in writing to immediately report any suspected breaches thereof to the special master (or to the Court).
4. With respect to all other persons, including those with Stroz Friedberg, defendants shall conduct a thorough investigation and provide a detailed accounting under oath setting forth every person who has seen or heard any part of any downloaded materials, what they saw or heard, when they saw or heard it, and for what purpose. In their investigation, defendants must do more than query servers with term searches. For example, they must interview personnel with particular focus on anyone who has communicated with Anthony Levandowski on the subject of LiDAR. Defendants’ accounting shall not be limited to Uber but shall include all persons who fit the foregoing description, including Levandowski and his separate counsel. The accounting may exclude, for only the time period after the commencement of this civil action, the attorneys of record and their staff and experts employed for this litigation. The accounting shall not be limited to downloaded materials that happened to make their way into some due diligence report but shall cover any and all downloaded materials. The accounting shall also identify the complete chains of custodians for every copy of any downloaded materials or due diligence report referencing downloaded materials. Defendants must also use the full extent of their authority and influence to obtain cooperation with the foregoing procedure from all involved. For example, if a potential custodian refuses to cooperate, then defendants’ accounting shall set forth the particulars, including all efforts made to obtain cooperation. The accounting must be filed and served by JUNE 23 AT NOON. The accounting may be filed under seal only to the extent that it quotes or appends downloaded materials.
5. Also by JUNE 23 AT NOON, defendants shall provide Waymo’s counsel and the Court with a complete and chronologically organized log of all oral and written communications — including, without limitation, conferences, meetings, phone calls, one-on-one conversations, texts, emails, letters, memos, and voicemails — wherein Anthony Levandowski mentioned LiDAR to any officer, director, employee, agent, supplier, or consultant of defendants. The log shall identify for each such communication the time, place (if applicable), mode, all persons involved, and subjects discussed, as well as any and all notes or records referencing the communication.
6. Waymo is hereby granted further expedited discovery in aid of possible further provisional relief. Subject to the protective order, and upon reasonable notice, Waymo’s counsel and one expert may inspect any and all aspects of defendants’ ongoing work involving LiDAR — including, without limitation, schematics, work orders, source code, notes, and emails — whether or not said work resulted in any prototype or device. With respect to its trade secret misappropriation claims only, Waymo may take seven further depositions on seven calendar days notice, may propound 28 reasonably narrow document requests for which the response time is reduced to 14 calendar days, and may propound 28 reasonably narrow interrogatories for which the response time is also reduced to 14 calendar days. If Waymo moves for further provisional relief before trial, then all its declarants in support of such motion must sit for depositions on an expedited basis. Otherwise, defendants may take only normal, unexpedited discovery. After Waymo has exhausted its expedited discovery, it may continue with normal discovery.
7. Defendants shall keep complete and accurate records of their compliance with all of the foregoing requirements, including directives given to Anthony Levandowski and others. The special master shall monitor and verify said compliance. To that end, the special master shall promptly develop proposed monitoring and verification protocols with the parties’ input and then submit the proposed protocols to the Court for approval. The protocols shall provide for the special master to visit defendants’ facilities and monitor communications as necessary to ensure that Anthony Levandowski remains sealed off from LiDAR activities.

The foregoing provisional relief shall become effective upon the posting by Waymo of a bond or other security in the amount of FIVE MILLION DOLLARS.

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