Misleading title. Makes it sound like they were wrong and are backing off. The patents being dropped are those which Uber is no longer using but was using at some point in their prototypes. There remains one key patent that Uber is still using and Alphabet is still suing them for it.
Google's spin is that they're dropping them because they're no longer using them, but the reality is that the judge has told them they're wrong:
> Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court in San Francisco, who is overseeing the case, urged the company’s lawyers at a hearing on June 7 to drop the patent claims because "you’re going to lose on all these patent claims unless you pull some rabbit out of a hat."
"you’re going to lose on all these patent claims ..." because Uber is no longer using them.
Waiting to be asked by the judge to drop them is the only valid political chess move they had. Withdrawing them without being asked would be worse, IMO. But the reason remains the same: Uber used to have them in their design/prototypes but they no longer do.
The judge asked them to drop all the patent claims, even the one that Google claims Uber is still using/infringing, which means it's unlikely to be related to whether or not Uber was or continues to infringe on them and more likely to be related to the strength of the patents themselves. A lot of patents get invalidated during cases like these...
"Likely to ne related to the strength of the patents" means that the patents have been scrutinized by the court and determined to be invalid. But that is not the case.
