Uber’s ambitions of introducing the first commercial self-driving trucks may be at risk. The company is facing a lawsuit by Waymo. The Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)-owned self-driving car entity subsidiary is pointing fingers at Uber for patent infringement and unfair competition.  The suit has also enjoined Otto a startup that was founded by Anthony Levandowski and Lior Ron.

In its suit, Waymo outlines the use of the company’s self-driving technology by Otto and Uber without the company’s sanction. The alleged far-reaching thievery has been linked to Levandowski and Ron who are formerly Google car and map veterans.

Part of suit alleges, “Otto and Uber have taken Waymo’s intellectual property so that they could avoid incurring the risk, time, and expense of independently developing their own technology.”

LiDAR, the technology at issue

The suit outlines how Levandowski stole 14,000 files of 9.7 GB containing confidential trade secrets. Of importance were the LiDAR circuit board designs, which have so far enabled Uber to revive its stalled program. The suit also mentions of the files being voluminous, thus it must have taken Levandowski a couple of hours to have them on an external drive.

The system has sensors that enable the detection of potential hazards that human drivers would miss; thanks to the use of a 360-degree field of vision.

The theft is said to have taken place in December of 2016 and the victim is reported to have resigned from Waymo without notice on Jan 27. Another two employees from Waymo have also left the company to join Otto and the whole twist of events raises more questions. For example, why the quick exit by Levandowski?

We are taking time to carefully review the matter, Uber says

Uber has been at the center stage of cases regarding the creation of autonomous vehicles. At some point, it has been involved in a public fight with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. However, in response, the latest allegations, Uber’s spokeswoman says that the company is carefully reviewing the matter.

Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick adds that the two companies are a dream come true. Meanwhile, the elimination of human drivers will be somewhat of a threat to the company’s ride-hailing business. It now remains to be seen how the U.S. District Court in San Francisco will conclude the matter.

In the meantime, Alphabet’s stock closed at $851.00 a fall of $0.36 or 0.04%.