Insta360, DJI lock horns in patent case

An employee flies a drone at a DJI store in Yantai, Shandong province. TANG KE/FOR CHINA DAILY

China's leading consumer drone maker and top panoramic camera company are entering a new phase of direct competition, with DJI filing its first domestic patent ownership lawsuit against Insta360 that has escalated tensions between the two technology rivals.

DJI filed the lawsuit on March 23 in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, citing disputes over the ownership of six patents.

The company alleged that several former core R&D employees were involved and that the disputed patents — covering flight control, structural design and imaging technologies — were closely related to their previous roles and developed within one year of the employees leaving DJI.

In response, Insta360 founder and CEO Liu Jingkang said on social media that the company had conducted a thorough review and that existing evidence shows that the patents were based on ideas generated internally at Insta360 and are the result of independent innovation.

Liu added that the company typically withholds the names of inventors in domestic filings to protect employees from headhunting, while disclosing them in international applications.

Liu also noted that some DJI technologies may fall within Insta360's patent protection scope, but the company has not initiated legal action.

Echoing the statement, Yuan Yue, head of Insta360's China operations, said in a post that according to an internal assessment, the technologies involved are covered by 28 patents held by Insta360, including 11 related to hardware and structural design, eight to software methods, six to control systems and three to accessories.

The dispute comes as the areas of expertise of the two Shenzhen-based consumer electronics firms, once operating in distinct segments — DJI in consumer drones and Insta360 in panoramic cameras — increasingly overlap.

According to market consultancy International Data Corp, DJI and Insta360 ranked first and second globally in the hand-held camera market in 2025, with market shares of 62.4 percent and 20.4 percent, respectively, accounting for more than 80 percent combined.

In the panoramic camera segment, Insta360 maintained its global lead, with shipments rising nearly 60 percent year-on-year and market share reaching 66 percent.

Competition intensified in July 2025, when Insta360 launched its first drone, the Antigravity A1, leveraging panoramic imaging as a differentiating feature. DJI responded within days by introducing its Osmo 360 panoramic camera, adopting a lower pricing strategy than its counterpart and marking a shift to direct rivalry.

Tensions had already surfaced late last year, when Insta360 accused DJI of enforcing supply chain exclusivity, claiming that more than 30 core component suppliers faced "either-or" choices, with distributors and retail channels also facing similar dilemmas.

In this regard, industry analysts said that in segments where both companies have established competitive advantages, each side is seeking to consolidate its position and safeguard proprietary technologies.

"This kind of exclusivity is not uncommon in the consumer electronics sector, and is a typical competitive strategy once the industry reaches a certain stage," said Liu Dayong, a senior semiconductor analyst at market research company Sigmaintell.

Liu noted that key components such as flight control chips, stabilization modules and imaging sensors often require joint development between brands and suppliers, leading to deep technological integration that can, to a certain extent, justify exclusive arrangements.

In return, key suppliers that have engaged in customized development with one company also tend to maintain existing partnerships, therefore often declining collaboration requests from competing firms, he explained.

For its part, Insta360 stressed a different perspective. "We believe that in the tech industry, replication and suppression will not lead to leadership — innovation and openness will," Yuan of Insta360's China business said.

Against this backdrop of intensifying competition, the company has also claimed a more open stance on intellectual property. Following a favorable outcome in a US Section 337 investigation involving US camera company GoPro, Liu, the founder and CEO, said Insta360 would not proactively initiate lawsuits if peers make "good-faith use" of certain patented technologies from its Insta360 Ace series.

lijiaying@chinadaily.com.cn