Waymo, the autonomous driving arm of Alphabet, was granted a win on Tuesday when a California court ruled it could keep certain details regarding its AV technology secret.

The company filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Motor Vehicles in late January in order to keep some information about its autonomous vehicle deployment permit, as well as emails between the DMV and the company, redacted from a public record request, which was originally filed by an undisclosed third party.

The ruling by the California Superior Court, Sacramento could set a precedent for broader trade secret protection, at least in the autonomous vehicle industry, involving public access to information that has to do with public safety, but which businesses claim contain trade secrets.

In its lawsuit, Waymo argued being forced to reveal trade secrets would undermine its investments into automated driving technology and have a "chilling effect across the industry" where the DMV is no longer a safe space for companies to transparently share information about their tech.

“We’re pleased that the court reached the right decision in granting Waymo’s request for a preliminary injunction, precluding the disclosure of competitively-sensitive trade secrets that Waymo had included in the permit application it submitted to the CA DMV," a Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch. "We will continue to openly share safety and other data on our autonomous driving technology and operations, while recognizing that detailed technical information we share with regulators is not always appropriate for sharing with the public.”

Like any other autonomous driving technology company looking to test and deploy in California, Waymo had to submit information about its safety practices and technology to the DMV, which then followed up with more specific questions. When the DMV received the public records request for Waymo's permit application information, the agency gave Waymo the chance to censor any sections it deemed might reveal trade secrets. Waymo did so, and the DMV sent the package to the third party with major portions blocked out. The requester challenged the blackouts, and the DMV, not wanting to get caught in the middle, advised Waymo to file a temporary retraining order against the DMV, according to Waymo. A judge then issued the restraining order on February 2, giving Waymo more time to seek an injunction prohibiting the disclosure of the material in unredacted form forevermore.