Archer Acquires Lilium’s Patent Portfolio: A Bittersweet Win for eVTOL Innovation

The eVTOL industry just saw a significant shift. Archer Aviation has acquired Lilium’s portfolio of roughly 300 advanced air mobility patents for €18 million — assets covering high-voltage systems, battery management, flight controls, and propulsion.

It’s hard not to feel a twinge of sadness seeing Lilium’s legacy fade. Their vision for electric vertical flight helped shape the public imagination around what urban air mobility could become. But the silver lining is that their innovation won’t gather dust in a filing cabinet — it will live on through Archer, one of the few companies with the funding and manufacturing momentum to put it to work.

This is a rare case where intellectual property remains in the ecosystem it was meant to serve. Too often, we see groundbreaking technology get sold off to investment groups, only to become stranded assets waiting for the next valuation bump. By keeping Lilium’s IP in the hands of another eVTOL manufacturer, the industry preserves its collective progress — the thousands of engineering hours, experiments, and lessons learned that brought us closer to quiet, efficient flight.

In a way, this isn’t an ending. It’s a handoff. Lilium may not reach the skies in its original form, but the ideas it pioneered still might.