[rogerdonaldson]

Btw, how do they prevent "reverse theft" here? When Google looks at Uber designs, couldnt they learn from them and incorporate the learnings back into their designs?

Regardless of whether Uber's design is using some of Waymo's design concepts -- I am sure there will be a lot of different aspects in Uber's designs some of which could be useful for Waymo.

[joshuamorton]

Elsewhere in the thread its been explained that "google get's to look at Uber's Lidar" is really "Google's lawyers and some non-employee experts get to look at Uber's Lidar". Essentially its Chinese walled, your average Waymo engineer (in fact probably every waymo engineer) isn't going to see the documents.

[linkregister]

Not to discount HN legal experts, but nowhere is third-party examination mentioned in the document. "Waymo attorney" and "Waymo expert" are the terms used.

Edit: I don't think there's much risk of this. It's illegal enough that I doubt an individual engineer would risk prison over the corporation they happened to work for.

[joshuamorton]

Right, waymo attorney is what it is, but waymo expert does not imply waymo employee (much like waymo attorney doesn't necessarily imply waymo employee either)