Baidu Inc (百度) is suing its former autonomous driving executive and his months-old start-up for allegedly stealing in-house technology, moving to protect intellectual property it considers vital to its future growth.
The lawsuit echoes a dispute between Alphabet Inc’s Waymo and Uber Technologies Inc, over allegations a former executive took valuable data when he left.
China’s largest search engine provider is suing JingChi Inc (景馳), led by former executive Wang Jing (王勁), in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, Baidu said.
It wants 50 million yuan (US$7.6 million) and legal costs in compensation, and demands the start-up cease using any purportedly stolen technology.
Baidu is accelerating an effort to become China’s leading provider of self-driving cars. The company has dubbed its open-source approach “Apollo” and is now trying to enlist carmakers and tech peers to contribute, fending off domestic rivals like Didi Chuxing (滴滴出行) that are raising billions of US dollars for research.
JingChi, founded in April, raised US$52 million in a September investment round from investors including Qiming Venture Partners (啟明創投) and Nvidia Corp.
It is licensed to test autonomous vehicles on California roads and has struck deals to deploy driverless cars in Anqing, China.
Baidu’s allegations were unfounded and JingChi’s legal team was preparing a response, Wang said yesterday.
“Baidu’s lawsuit is entirely without basis. Our lawyers will respond factually and legally,” he said, adding that his company led the country in driverless car technology.
“Our headquarters will move back to China and within two weeks we will showcase our technological capabilities,” Wang said.
Baidu also claims Wang breached contractual agreements and poached technical staff from the search giant for JingChi.
While the claimed pales in comparison to damages sought in US lawsuits, it is relatively high by Chinese standards.
“The case has now entered the judicial process and for further information please look to publicly disclosed information from the courts,” Baidu said.
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