Wisk submits injunction to US federal judge to stop Archer from using confidential trade secrets

Wisk has filed a motion for a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion to stop eVTOL air­craft devel­op­er Archer from using its con­fi­den­tial trade secrets ahead of a tri­al.

The com­pa­ny began legal action against Archer last month, and alleges its busi­ness is ‘built on intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty that is not its own’ and brings claims for trade secret mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion and patent infringe­ment. 

Accord­ing to the fil­ing sent to the fed­er­al court in the North­ern Dis­trict of Cal­i­for­nia in April, the law­suit fol­lows Wisk’s dis­cov­ery of sus­pi­cious file down­loads by for­mer employ­ees who left the com­pa­ny to work for Archer, includ­ing thou­sands of files relat­ed to Wisk’s con­fi­den­tial air­craft, com­po­nent and sys­tems designs, man­u­fac­tur­ing and test data.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Wisk has said Archer’s recent dis­clo­sure of an air­craft design appears to be a copy of a design it devel­oped and sub­mit­ted in a con­fi­den­tial patent appli­ca­tion to the U.S. Patent and Trade­mark Office in Jan­u­ary 2020.

The copied design includes six front rotors that each con­sist of five blades and can tilt to be posi­tioned either hor­i­zon­tal­ly or ver­ti­cal­ly, as well as six rear rotors that each con­sist of two blades and remain fixed in a ver­ti­cal posi­tion. The design also includes an uncon­ven­tion­al ‘V’ tail.

A spokesper­son for Wisk said: “The theft of our high­ly con­fi­den­tial files, the vir­tu­al copy of Wisk’s design from a con­fi­den­tial patent appli­ca­tion, and Archer’s star­tling­ly short oper­a­tional his­to­ry make clear that Archer’s pro­gram is built on Wisk’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, as we out­lined in our Com­plaint.

“With our motion for a pre­lim­i­nary injunc­tion, we are ask­ing the Court to stop Archer from using the valu­able trade secrets stolen from Wisk. These trade secrets span the gamut of sys­tems with­in the air­craft and process­es for devel­op­ment. We look for­ward to pre­sent­ing our case to the Court. 

“We will con­tin­ue to coop­er­ate with the FBI and U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice on their crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into Archer relat­ing to the theft and use of Wisk’s intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty.”

At the time, Archer said it would defend itself ‘vig­or­ous­ly’ and in an updat­ed state­ment, a spokesper­son for the com­pa­ny said: “This a base­less motion in a base­less law­suit. Archer inde­pen­dent­ly designed its air­craft, before any employ­ees from Wisk joined Archer, and Archer looks for­ward to demon­strat­ing that in court. 

“Archer is mov­ing for­ward with its busi­ness plans, includ­ing the devel­op­ment, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and pro­duc­tion of its pro­pri­etary air­craft.”