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Two next-generation aviation companies are facing off in a legal battle.
Joby Aviation is suing Archer Aviation over allegations that its rival misappropriated trade secrets that were stolen from Joby by a former employee. Joby filed the lawsuit Thursday. It comes as the two companies push to roll out electric air taxi service in the U.S.
“Archer brazenly used that stolen information to interfere with Joby’s exclusive strategic partnership,” the complaint reads. “This is corporate espionage, planned and premeditated.”
Both companies are developing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, meant to operate as air taxis. Santa Cruz, California-based Joby Aviation is targeting Dubai for the initial launch of its first air taxi service before rolling out in the U.S. cities like Los Angeles and New York, in partnership with Delta Air Lines. Archer Aviation is based in San Jose, California, and also aims to roll out its air taxi service in New York City, but in partnership with United Airlines. Both trade publicly on the New York Stock Exchange and have contracts with the Department of Defense for military applications of their technology.
The lawsuit centers around Archer employee George Kivork, who had previously worked as Joby’s head of U.S. state and local policy. On his LinkedIn, Kivork describes his current role at Archer as general manager. Prior to Joby, he worked as a senior public policy manager at Lyft, in various roles for the city of Los Angeles, and as an attorney in the Department of Commerce’s Office of General Counsel.
The lawsuit alleges that two days before Kivork left the company, he withdrew “dozens of files” from Joby’s systems, even sending some to his personal email. They allegedly contained confidential and proprietary information about “partnership terms, business and regulatory strategies, infrastructure strategies for vertiports and airport access, and technical information about Joby’s aircraft and operations.” Three weeks later, Joby alleges that Archer approached a major real estate developer that already has a strategic partnership with Joby, and pitched a deal that was “specifically calibrated to undercut Joby’s agreement with the Developer.”
Archer Chief Legal and Strategy Officer Eric Lentel called Joby’s case “bad faith litigation” in a statement provided to Inc.
“Joby alleges we used their trade secrets to win a ‘deal’ with a developer but the reality is that Archer has no deal with this developer and Mr. Kivork did not bring any Joby confidential information to Archer,” Lentell said. “Joby knows these facts and is now improperly attempting to achieve through bad faith litigation what it cannot accomplish through fair competition. Archer remains focused on building the future of advanced aviation in America.”
Archer has been under legal scrutiny before. In 2021, autonomous eVTOL company Wisk Aero sued Archer for alleged intellectual property theft. The company similarly claimed that Archer had acquired the confidential information through a former employee, TechCrunch reported. The two eventually settled in 2023, and per terms of the dispute, Archer agreed to use Wisk as an autonomous partner, according to CNBC. As of 2023, Wisk is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boeing.
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Chloe Aiello
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