The language here just screams patent troll. C’mon, Google/Alphabet, you’re better than this.

I particularly like this line:

To gain access to Waymo’s design server, Mr. Levandowski searched for and installed specialized software onto his company-issued laptop.

I was on your side until I read that one sentence. If I were you, and I wanted money, that’s what I’d be saying if I wanted to skew facts in my favor. It sounds as though you’re about to call something like Python, wget, curl, or bash “specialized software.” That’s software that specializes in not specializing: it’s designed to be versatile and do whatever the user wants. Naturally, a patent troll will argue that it accommodates stealing intellectual property. That’s akin to arguing that someone is producing illicit pornography because they own a camera, or that they’re conducting crime online because they have a web browser. It’s an irrelevant fact: those tools are ridiculously common. I almost certainly have whatever “specialized” software you’re talking about — I don’t steal and I’m not an engineer.

Is what we’re seeing here actually Google (sorry, “Alphabet”) cutting its losses and backing out of the race for practical self-driving cars? Because, as a consumer, that’s what I’m seeing: over-aggressive asset recovery as an exit maneuver for a failed investment.