(credit: Court documents)
At the heart of Uber’s litigation with Waymo is another oddly-named self-driving startup called Otto. That’s the company founded by Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski right after he left Google, the job at which he was accused of illegally downloading more than 14,000 files. Levandowski sold Otto to Uber within a few months.
While the legal action between Uber and Waymo rages on, Uber is quietly ending another legal fight over the name “Otto” itself. Back in August, just after Uber’s acquisition for $680 million, Otto was sued (PDF) by Clearpath Robotics, a large installed-robotics company with a headquarters in Kitchener, Ontario. Clearpath already had a division called OTTO Motors, which manufactured OTTO, described as “the first self-driving warehouse robot.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Uber walks away from Otto trademark