A federal court in Northern California has allowed part of Joby Aviation’s trade secret case against Archer Aviation and former Joby employee George Kivork to move forward, while dismissing several other claims in the ongoing dispute between the two electric air taxi developers. In an order issued Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Van Keulen dismissed Archer’s counterclaims and also narrowed several of Joby’s claims. Archer was granted leave to amend its counterclaims.
Trade Secret Claim Moves Forward
The court said Joby adequately pleaded a Defend Trade Secrets Act claim involving a confidential real estate developer agreement. Joby alleges that Kivork downloaded relevant files before he left the company to start a new role at Archer. It alleges that Archer then approached the same developer to propose a new deal that reflected confidential terms from Joby’s agreement.
The court dismissed Joby’s trade secret claim as to other categories of alleged information, including certain commercial, regulatory, technical and infrastructure materials, but allowed Joby to amend those allegations.
“We are pleased and not surprised that Joby’s core trade secret claims against Archer and Mr. Kivork will move forward, while Archer’s counterclaims were dismissed in full,” Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel, who represents Joby, said. “Archer’s ludicrous and defamatory counterclaims were nothing more than a baseless attempt to distract from Joby’s trade secret misappropriation case proceeding against Archer.”
Archer Plans Amendment
Archer’s counterclaims, which alleged Joby misrepresented some aircraft material sourcing and concealed ties to China, were dismissed by the court as “impermissible shotgun pleadings.” The court also found the counterclaims did not meet the pleading standard for fraud-based allegations, but granted Archer leave to amend by June 29. Joby may amend its complaint by June 22. Archer and Kivork have until July 6 to respond to any amended Joby complaint, and Joby has until July 13 to respond to any amended Archer counterclaims.
“We are very pleased with the court’s decision to dismiss the vast majority of Joby’s meritless claims against Archer and Mr. Kivork, in particular the court’s finding that Joby’s proprietary information and assignment agreement with him is an unlawful non-compete,” Eric Lentell, chief strategy and legal officer for Archer, told AVweb. “Regarding our counterclaims against Joby, the Court’s dismissal was primarily procedural in nature with the judge giving us the ability to amend and resubmit our complaint by June 29. We fully intend to do so and look forward to holding Joby accountable.”
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