SAN FRANCISCO -- Engineer Anthony Levandowski, recognized for advancing self-driving automobile know-how within the final decade, agreed to plead responsible on Thursday to taking delicate paperwork from his former employer Google earlier than becoming a member of rival Uber Applied sciences Inc.

Federal prosecutors agreed to suggest a jail time period of not more than 30 months as a part of plea settlement in some of the well-known company disputes in current Silicon Valley historical past.

"We hope that this plea will permit him to maneuver on together with his life and focus his energies the place they matter most," growing new applied sciences, his lawyer, Miles Ehrlich, mentioned in a press release.

The U.S. lawyer's workplace in San Francisco declined to remark.

The workplace is tasked with policing mental property theft within the largest U.S. tech hub. Final month, it dropped what remained of a commerce secrets and techniques theft case involving wearable system firm Fitbit Inc and now-defunct rival Jawbone after a San Francisco jury acquitted the primary...