SEC Filings

Vertical Aerospace Hits Back At Archer With Patent Counterclaim Targeting Its Midnight Aircraft

The eVTOL developer's subsidiary asks a Texas federal court for an injunction and unspecified damages in the suit Archer filed in February.

Matteo Parrino Jonathan Ponciano

Matteo Parrino, Jonathan Ponciano

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Vertical Aerospace Hits Back At Archer With Patent Counterclaim Targeting Its Midnight Aircraft

Vertical Aerospace's subsidiary filed a patent infringement counterclaim against Archer Aviation on Tuesday, asking a Texas federal court to stop Archer's Midnight eVTOL aircraft and to award monetary damages. The company disclosed the move in a Form 6-K, the report foreign issuers furnish to the SEC, filed Wednesday.

What the 6-K says

Vertical Aerospace Group Ltd., known as VAGL and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vertical Aerospace Ltd., filed the counterclaim in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. It alleges that Archer's Midnight, an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, infringes one or more claims of VAGL's U.S. Patent No. 12,747,027.

VAGL seeks, among other things, an injunction to prevent further infringement, plus monetary damages. The filing names no dollar figure.

The counterclaim sits inside a lawsuit Archer brought against Vertical Aerospace and VAGL on February 23, 2026. That case is Archer Aviation Inc. v. Vertical Aerospace Ltd. & Vertical Aerospace Group Ltd., Civil Action No. 2:26-cv-00149-JRG.

What it changes

Vertical Aerospace is now a claimant as well as a defendant in the same case. The patent claim targets a specific aircraft, Midnight, rather than Archer generally.

The filing says nothing about the outcome of either side's claims. Its forward-looking statements section lists "the successful outcome of the Counterclaim" among matters that are uncertain, and points readers to the risk factors in the company's annual report on Form 20-F, filed with the SEC on March 24, 2026.

The stock closed at $0.56 at Tuesday's close, before the 6-K was filed, for a market cap of about $94 million (market data).

The filing gives no schedule for the counterclaim, so the next concrete disclosure will be whatever Vertical Aerospace files or furnishes after this one.

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