Litigation Tip of the Month: A Cautionary Tale
In recent months, a lawsuit brought by Waymo, a self-driving car company that was formerly a part of Google, against embattled Uber, has garnered considerable media attention. Waymo alleges that Uber stole key elements of its self-driving car technology from Waymo, which Uber then used to jumpstart its effort to commercialize self-driving vehicles. In this respect, the
Waymo v. Uber litigation is like many trade secrets cases pending in courts throughout the country. But this case recently took an interesting turn.
In April, Waymo deposed the key Uber executive at the heart of the lawsuit. A copy of this deposition transcript, which was heavily redacted and concealed from the public, was subsequently filed with the Court. But the public filing also included the index with all of the words used in the deposition and the page and line on which they appeared. By cross-referencing the redactions with the word index, reporters from Tech Crunch deciphered most of the redacted information. In the process, they were able to learn non-public details about the technology at the heart of the lawsuit. The transcript was subsequently pulled from the public docket, but by that stage, most of the redacted information had already been publicized.
While this is an unusual situation, the moral of the story is clear: when filing a redacted transcript, attorneys should omit the word index. Otherwise, they risk revealing their client’s sensitive information to both their adversary and the public at large.
|
