Did you read the article you linked? First two paragraphs:

> Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car division, dropped three of four patent infringement claims in its lawsuit against Uber Technologies over the startup’s autonomous vehicle program.

> Waymo’s decision to include patent claims in its lawsuit against Uber was a surprise move for Google parent Alphabet, which normally prides itself on limiting patent fights. The bulk of Waymo’s case is not over patents, but trade secrets.

That didn't read like a fizzled case. It reads like Waymo opened up by throwing everything and the kitchen sink at Uber, and now as the case is progressing, the number of legal fronts being fought is getting reduced to a manageable number that Waymo was expecting in the first place. It's unsurprising that the patent parts are getting reduced, since the obvious allegation was theft of trade secrets anyway.