Electric air-taxi company Joby Aviation has sued rival Archer Aviation in California state court for allegedly stealing its trade secrets, according to a complaint made public on Thursday.

Joby said in the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in state court in Santa Cruz, California, that Archer hired away a Joby employee, George Kivork, who took confidential information to Archer about its business strategies, partnership terms and aircraft specifications.

“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,” Archer's chief legal and strategy officer, Eric Lentell, said on Thursday in response to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

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"Joby knows these facts and is now improperly attempting to achieve through bad faith litigation what it cannot accomplish through fair competition," he said.

A Joby spokesperson declined to comment beyond the text of the complaint.

Electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft firms like Joby and Archer are racing to bring their vehicles to market, aiming to meet a demand for faster, more sustainable urban transportation.

Santa Cruz, California-based Joby is backed by Toyota and said in September that it plans to bring helicopter and seaplane services to Uber's ride-sharing app as soon as next year.

Joby's lawsuit said Kivork, who led its state and local policy team, left the company for San Jose, California-based Archer after his last working day in July.

Joby alleged that Archer misused its trade secrets in an August bid to undercut Joby's contract with a real-estate developer. The developer told Joby that Archer knew confidential details of the agreement and that Kivork must have shared them with his new employer, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit said Joby learned from a forensic investigation that Kivork had sent dozens of Joby's files to a personal email account and changed security permissions for hundreds of others so he could access them after he left.

Joby requested an unspecified amount of monetary damages and a court order blocking Archer from misusing its trade secrets.

Archer settled separate trade-secret claims from Boeing's Wisk air-taxi subsidiary in 2023.

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