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A federal judge has narrowed the trade-secret lawsuit brought by Joby Aero against Archer Aviation, dismissing several allegations for now while allowing claims tied to a Los Angeles airport lease and a developer agreement to proceed. The Northern District of California’s September 29 order also dismissed Archer’s amended counterclaims against Joby without leave to amend.
Archer disclosed the ruling on Friday, October 2. The decision is mixed for the two electric-aircraft developers: Joby lost parts of its case, but retained claims that the court found adequately supported at this stage; Archer, meanwhile, cannot continue its claims that Joby misled the U.S. government in connection with government programs.
Hawthorne airport allegations survive
Joby alleges that former employee George Kivork took company files before leaving for Archer and that Archer used Joby information in competing for business opportunities. The court found Joby had plausibly alleged misappropriation relating to plans to lease space at Hawthorne Airport in Los Angeles County, where Joby had explored a facility for maintenance, repair and operations.
According to the court’s account of the amended complaint, Kivork downloaded dozens of files from Joby’s SharePoint repository on July 18, 2025, two days before telling Joby he intended to resign. The files allegedly included a contact list containing Joby’s Hawthorne contacts and a strategy document identifying the airport as a possible vertiport location. Kivork began working for Archer in August 2025; Archer bought a long-term lease at Hawthorne in November and later announced plans to use it as an MRO vertiport.
The judge said those allegations, considered together, supported a plausible inference that Joby’s information may have been used. The court emphasized that it was assessing the sufficiency of the pleadings, not determining whether misappropriation actually occurred. Joby’s allegations concerning materials related to a separate developer agreement also remain in the case.
Other alleged uses need more support
The order dismissed Joby’s misappropriation theories concerning several other alleged trade secrets, including information connected to Archer’s sponsorship discussions with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Joby’s plans for demonstrations in Japan and South Korea. The judge said Joby had identified materials it considered trade secrets, but had not adequately alleged that Archer or Kivork used or disclosed most of them.
For the Dodgers-related claim, the court found that the presence of one executive’s contact information on a file allegedly taken by Kivork did not, by itself, show that Archer used the information in its sponsorship bid. On the Asia-Pacific allegations, the court noted that Archer had expressed interest in activity in Japan and South Korea before Kivork joined the company, and that Joby’s amended complaint said Archer had not conducted an exhibition flight in either country as of June 2026.
Joby was given another opportunity to amend the dismissed trade-secret allegations. The order also left open Joby’s claim that Archer could threaten to misuse identified trade secrets. The court’s decision therefore trims the scope of the dispute without ending Joby’s federal trade-secret case.
Contract claims turn on the specific agreement terms
The judge also distinguished between provisions in an employment agreement Kivork signed at Joby. Joby’s contract claim against Kivork may continue based on allegations that he failed to return company materials and added his personal email address as an owner of hundreds of documents while still employed. The court had previously found that a broad confidentiality provision was unenforceable under California law because it functioned as a restraint on future employment.
Joby’s claim that Archer induced Kivork to breach the agreement survived only insofar as it concerns the obligation to return items. The court dismissed the theory that Archer induced a breach of restrictions applying during Kivork’s employment, while allowing Joby to try to amend that portion. A related California unfair-competition claim against Archer also remains to the extent it is based on alleged inducement of a breach of the item-return provision.
Archer’s claims over government statements dismissed
Archer’s amended counterclaims accused Joby of making misleading representations about its U.S. manufacturing and supply-chain ties when seeking government support, including in connection with the Air Force’s AFWERX Agility Prime program and the FAA and Department of Transportation’s eIPP program. Archer alleged that Joby had obscured ties to China and that its disclosures affected government decisions.
The judge concluded Archer had not identified specific false statements Joby made to the government. Public-facing claims about manufacturing, and allegations about Joby’s China operations, did not establish what the company actually represented in government submissions. The court found the counterclaims deficient under the Lanham Act and California’s Unfair Competition Law, and ruled that the Noerr-Pennington doctrine protected the government-petitioning activity at issue. Because the court said the claims could not be fixed through another amendment, it dismissed them without leave to amend.
The broader rivalry and what comes next
Joby filed its lawsuit in California state court in November 2025, and the defendants moved it to federal court the following month. The dispute centers on allegations involving Kivork, business-development information and competition for infrastructure opportunities. The claims remain allegations; the September order resolved motions to dismiss rather than deciding the underlying facts after trial.
The lawsuit is one part of a broader pattern of intellectual-property disputes among developers seeking to commercialize electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Reuters has reported that Archer settled separate trade-secret claims brought by Boeing-owned Wisk in 2023 and filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Vertical Aerospace earlier in 2026. The September order does not specify a trial date or a final resolution timetable for the remaining Joby claims; Joby has permission to amend portions of its case.
