The legal battle between Boeing and Zunum Aero took an unexpected turn on August 14, 2024, when a US federal judge overturned a previous jury’s decision to award the now-defunct electric aviation startup $72 million as compensation for alleged trade secrets infringement.
In 2020, Zunum Aero sued Boeing, which was an investor in the company, alleging that the aircraft manufacturing giant had used Zunum’s intellectual property to develop its own hybrid-electric aircraft program, while starving its investee of further funding.
In this new ruling, the judge at the Seattle US District Court exonerated Boeing of all charges. The judge argued that there was no evidence any of the information Boeing had obtained from Zunum, and allegedly misused, could be considered a trade secret.
While this decision means that Boeing will not be required to pay compensation to Zunum Aero, the startup is still liable to pay $12 million to Boeing. This is due to the fact that, in addition to blaming Boeing for trade secrets infringement, the earlier ruling had also found Zunum Aero to be in breach of its contract with the aircraft maker.
Zunum Aero was one of the pioneering startups in the field of electric aviation, but its project to develop a hybrid-electric regional airliner never came to fruition and the company filed for bankruptcy in 2019.