Wisk's filing is a desperate attempt to deflect attention away from its own misconduct and the material falsehoods at the heart of its lawsuit. Archer has presented the Court with irrefutable evidence, including testimony by Wisk’s own employees, showing that the centerpiece of its case—a drawing in its patent application supposedly depicting a new eVTOL design that it alleges Archer stole—is nothing more than a litigation prop created from information it received from Archer. Specifically, Wisk rushed to prepare and file the patent application at issue almost immediately after Archer’s founders disclosed Archer’s eVTOL designs to Wisk’s Chief Engineer during a recruiting meeting. Contrary to the litigation story Wisk has crafted, Wisk did not begin any design or development program for a 12-tilt-6 eVTOL aircraft until after it learned of Archer’s designs, as proposed by Archer’s independent consultant, FlightHouse Engineering.

The evidence shows that Wisk did not have a good faith basis to bring this lawsuit, and that it did not file the litigation to defend or protect any legitimate intellectual property rights. Instead, Wisk’s goal here is an improper and malicious attempt to disrupt Archer’s momentum, as a means to compensate for its own lack of success. Wisk has lacked a focus on bringing to market aircraft that were commercially viable.  Recognizing that Archer and others were intent on making eVTOL aircraft a reality of urban transportation, Wisk is now abusing the judicial system in hopes that a court can help Wisk slow down the pace of innovation while Wisk struggles to keep up.  

In its filing today, Wisk has thrown everything and anything against the wall in the hopes that something will stick. These new claims, like those that came before, lack any factual basis and rely on wild speculation and innuendo.

What is equally clear and more troubling is that Wisk is not satisfied with maligning Archer alone. Wisk’s filing today, with its broadside attack on talented engineers who once worked for Wisk or one of its predecessors, is an unmistakably threatening message to its own employees – if you leave Wisk you can’t work in aerospace because Wisk owns your experiences and knowledge. At a time when our President is taking aim at just these kinds of anti-competitive tactics by big business, we find this deeply disturbing. We at Archer, like the Biden Administration and the laws of the State of California, favor employee mobility.  We have worked hard to create a culture and company policies that respect that premise, while simultaneously ensuring the protection of former employers’ intellectual property rights.  

We will continue to vigorously defend Archer and our employees against these baseless allegations.