Judge Asks Federal Prosecutors to Investigate Uber's Driverless Car Program

A judge asked federal prosecutors to investigate Uber Technologies Inc. and one of its engineers for potential theft of trade secrets from Google, heightening the stakes of a legal battle between Uber and Google parent Alphabet Inc. over driverless-car technology.

The judge late Thursday also temporarily blocked a limited part of Uber's driverless-car program, which Google alleges benefited from the stolen trade secrets. The judge also determined the lawsuit Google filed against Uber will head to trial, dealing a blow to Uber's strategy.

The motion issuing a partial injunction was sealed. As a result, the scope and details of the injunction -- and how drastically it would curb Uber's program -- are unclear. Alphabet's driverless-car unit, which Google recently renamed Waymo, had asked the judge to block much of Uber's work on self-driving cars.

Write to Jack Nicas at jack.nicas@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 11, 2017 23:42 ET (03:42 GMT)