DJI Sues Insta360 as Rivalry Escalates From Products to Patents

1. DJI, a leading Chinese drone manufacturer, has filed a lawsuit against Insta360, a camera maker, over ownership of six critical patents related to drone flight control, structural design, and imaging technology. This marks the first direct legal confrontation between the two consumer-electronics companies. DJI claims the patents represent areas where it has developed significant technical expertise and accuses Insta360 of leveraging know-how brought by ex-DJI employees who joined the rival company and quickly filed similar patent applications.[para. 1][para. 2]

2. The legal dispute focuses on six patents that Insta360 filed, covering essential drone technologies, including flight control, structural elements, and image processing innovations. DJI contends that most patent filings happened less than a year after former DJI employees began working at Insta360, with several others filed only slightly outside this window. DJI further argues that, considering the preparation time needed for patents, these inventions likely fall within a one-year threshold defined in Chinese patent law, which covers service inventions generated soon after an employee’s departure.[para. 3]

3. Under Chinese patent law, inventions made within a year of an employee leaving a company and relating to their previous role may be designated as service inventions, meaning the former employer retains patent rights. Legal experts note that while timing is important in such cases, the primary legal issue often revolves around whether the new patents are sufficiently related to work done for the previous employer.[para. 4][para. 5]

4. Insta360’s founder, Liu Jingkang, publicly responded by asserting that the disputed patents resulted from original innovation at Insta360, rather than being derived from DJI’s intellectual property. Liu emphasized that most drone-related patents in question were actually filed four to five years earlier, prior to subsequent product revisions, and that many were never commercialized.[para. 6]

5. DJI has also accused Insta360 of hiding the inventors’ names in domestic patent filings, while disclosing them in international filings, suggesting an attempt by Insta360 to conceal connections to former DJI personnel. Chinese regulations permit withholding inventors’ names domestically for privacy, while international filings require disclosure. Liu refuted allegations of intent to mislead, explaining that anonymizing inventor names is a standard Insta360 practice aimed at protecting personnel from headhunters and safeguarding privacy, regardless of their previous employment.[para. 7][para. 8]

6. The legal dispute stems from a growing commercial rivalry. The boundary between DJI’s focus on drones and Insta360’s on panoramic cameras has increasingly blurred as each moves aggressively into the other’s market segments. In July, Insta360 entered the consumer-drone market with its Antigravity brand, while DJI simultaneously entered the panoramic action camera market, a stronghold of Insta360.[para. 9][para. 10]

7. Insta360’s Antigravity A1 drone launched in December 2024, selling over 30 million yuan (approximately $4.4 million USD) in China within 48 hours. The company is also seeking international certifications. During this time, Liu claimed several suppliers faced pressure to work exclusively with DJI, implying anti-competitive practices.[para. 11][para. 12]

8. DJI’s entry into panoramic cameras has quickly shifted market dynamics. Before DJI’s Osmo 360 launch in Q3 2025, Insta360 held 85%–92% of the global market by revenue. After DJI entered, its market share rose to 43%, while Insta360’s shrank to 49%, underscoring the intensity of the competition.[para. 13]

9. Patent disputes like this are common in technology sectors where specialized employees switch employers and attempt to commercialize know-how. DJI, as a global drone leader, has a history of large-scale patent accumulation and has previously litigated against rivals such as Autel Robotics and Zero Tech over intellectual property issues.[para. 14]