DJI sues Insta360

Samuel Buchmann

26-3-2026

Translation: machine translated

Insta360 launched its first drone on the market just a few months ago via its subsidiary brand Antigravity. Now the manufacturer is being sued by top dog DJI for allegedly copying its design and features.

The Chinese drone manufacturer DJI is taking its Chinese rival Insta360 to court for alleged patent infringements. The lawsuit was filed with the Intermediate People's Court in Shenzhen and is directed against Insta360 and its parent company Arashi Vision. According to Chinese media, the lawsuit concerns six patents in the areas of flight control, image processing and hardware design.

DJI claims that former employees applied for patents within a year of their departure, the technical basis of which was developed during their time at DJI. Under Chinese patent law, such inventions can be attributed to the former employer. According to DJI, Insta360 therefore initially did not disclose the names of the inventors in order to conceal the alleged theft.

Bitter battle for market share

Insta360 entered the drone business dominated by DJI at the end of 2025 with the Antigravity A1. In return, DJI is challenging Insta360 in the action cam market with the Osmo 360 - and will soon be launching a competitor model to the Antigravity A1, the Avata 360. Both companies are thus penetrating each other's core segments. The similarities are striking. In my test of the Antigravity A1, for example, I noticed that the controls are similar to those of the DJI Avata.

Insta360 founder Liu Jingkang rejects the allegations in a statement to the media. Internal checks have shown that the disputed intellectual property rights originated from independent development work at Insta360. Liu described the practice of initially not naming inventors in national applications as standard industry practice in order to protect developers from aggressive poaching. The names would only be disclosed in international PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) proceedings.

Liu also accused DJI of having taken over functions from Insta360 itself. For example, one app was described in media reports as being surprisingly similar to «» . So far, the company has refrained from counterclaims and instead focussed on research and new products.

Samuel Buchmann

Senior Editor

Samuel.Buchmann@digitecgalaxus.ch

My fingerprint often changes so drastically that my MacBook doesn't recognise it anymore. The reason? If I'm not clinging to a monitor or camera, I'm probably clinging to a rockface by the tips of my fingers.

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