Drone market rivalry heats up in China: DJI sues Insta360 for patent theft
The rivalry between two Chinese camera and drone manufacturers has reached new heights. DJI has officially filed a lawsuit against Insta360 and its parent company Arashi Vision with the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court. The allegations are serious: Insta360 is accused of unlawfully using six key DJI patents related to flight control, image processing and hardware design.
At the core of this legal dispute are former DJI employees who filed new patents within one year of joining Insta360. Under Chinese law, inventions made by an employee within twelve months of leaving a company and closely related to their previous work belong to their former employer. DJI is now demanding an official transfer of these patent rights.
Insta360 CEO Liu Jingkang, also known as JK Liu, has strongly denied the allegations on Weibo, stating the company’s internal investigations deliver a clear picture: All of the ideas mentioned in the lawsuit were created within Insta360. JK Liu added that Insta360 initially kept the identities of the real inventors anonymous not out of guilt, but to protect its developers from competitors’ aggressive headhunters. Liu also claimed that the patents in question have remained unused for around five years. For example, an automatic dive function mentioned in the complaint would never make it into a finished product due to strict aviation laws.
Rather than simply defending Insta360, JK Liu has launched a direct attack on DJI, claiming that the market leader doesn’t shy away from copying components and software features. Insta360’s internal surveys heavily implicate DJI, suggesting current DJI cameras such as the Osmo 360 potentially infringe 28 patents owned by Insta360. Despite all this, JK Liu isn’t planning to launch a legal counterattack. His comparatively small company would rather invest its resources into new technologies than engage expensive lawyers. In the US, Liu recently demonstrated that Insta360 can indeed win such legal battles: The US International Trade Commission (ITC) dismissed all of GoPro’s patent lawsuits against the company.
The timing of this court hearing is highly deliberate. Both tech giants have encroached on each other’s territories for a long time. DJI has been targeting the lucrative 360-degree camera market with models like the Osmo 360, whilst Insta360 has been trying to challenge DJI’s dominance in the drone segment. For instance, its Antigravity sub-brand launched the A1 in late 2025 as the first true 360-degree drone, putting DJI under massive pressure to respond. The company’s answer is set to arrive on Thursday, 26 March in the form of the new Avata 360. This ongoing hardware war has already left its mark on the stock market. The share price of Insta360’s parent company Arashi Vision plummeted by almost seven percent after DJI’s complaint became public.
Add as a preferred
