European Drone Companies, Where are Your Patents?

Innovations and technology often account for the greatest share of the value of a business. Patents are typically a critical factor in demonstrating and realising that value. When the time comes to seek investment or an exit, ownership of a patent portfolio, commensurate with the size and nature of a business, is usually key to securing a successful outcome. Such a portfolio gives an investor or buyer confidence that the benefits of R&D investment can be realised. Without it, innovations and technology are far more vulnerable to being taken by third parties. This typically results in loss of competitive advantage and worse, to a competitor that has not had to invest in the R&D to realise the benefit.

The regard in which a patent portfolio is held can be seen in industry examples. As reported here in October, US based Archer aviation won a competitive tender to acquire the 90+ patent family portfolio of Germany’s struggling Lilium Air Mobility for a reported €18M. In March 2025, Germany’s Volocopter, which has its own portfolio of 70+ patent families, was aquired from insolvency by China based Wenfang Group (see here). For our previous thoughts on the patent portfolios of Lilium and Volocopter and their potential value (especially to a business with operations in Europe and/or the US in the case of Lilium and China in the case of Volocopter) see our article here. Meanwhile, in November 2024, GoPro sold a sizeable drone related patent portfolio to Skydio in an all US deal (see here).

As the drone and eVTOL sectors mature, significant industry consolidation is occurring. A selection of recent examples include Airbus acquiring Aerovel, (which has its own portfolio of US patents and patent applications) BAE Systems acquiring Malloy Aeronautics, Robinson Helicopter acquiring Ascent AeroSystems, Team UAV joining PDG Aviation Services, Red Cat acquiring FlightWave Aerospace Systems, Delair acquiring Squadrone-System and the acquisition of Sentient Vision Systems by Shield AI.

Consequently, more now than ever it is important for innovative drone and eVTOL companies to generate and maintain a strategic patent portfolio to demonstrate their value for inward investment and/or M&A approaches.

Yet patent filing data suggests that over the last decade, numbers of drone related patent applications from companies of major European countries combined, are only on a par with those originating from Japan, well behind those originating from South Korea and the US and dwarfed by those originating from China.

Whilst there are doubtless outliers, it is concerning that so many European innovators will be vulnerable to loss of the fruits of their R&D labour and being valued below their potential at a time of industry consolidation.

The process of securing a patent might cost £5-20k over a number of years, but the potential value of such a patent in protecting monopoly rights to an important technology can of course be orders of magnitude higher. At present, this seems to be a dangerous blind spot for a significant number of European companies.