Lawsuit between the two giants: DJI's relentless pursuit and Ying Shi's backyard fire

(Source: The Investor Network—Thinking Finance)

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“Directly targeting technical moat.”

In March, DJI formally filed a lawsuit against InnoView Innovation (688775.SH) with the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court. The case concerns six patent ownership disputes, and the court has already accepted the case in an official capacity.

This is DJI’s first large-scale patent ownership lawsuit initiated domestically. Although it appears to be a typical intellectual-property dispute between technology companies, it in fact tears open the contradictions between two major imaging-technology giants—from deep cultivation in niche segments to cross-industry penetration, from building technical barriers to expanding commercial territory.

This lawsuit is not only about the ownership of the patents in question, but also reflects the fundamentally different development core logics of the two companies, as well as the industry reshaping in smart imaging—from compartmentalized rivalry in niches to full-scale competition.

01

The Core of the Lawsuit: Directly Targeting DJI’s Core Technical Moat

DJI’s lawsuit against InnoView Innovation has clear and highly targeted core allegations. It is not a broad claim of patent infringement, but focuses on “the determination of the right to a job-related invention.” According to DJI’s complaint and publicly available information, the six patents at issue are not peripheral technologies of InnoView Innovation. Instead, they are concentrated in three core areas: drone flight-control, body-structure design, and image-processing algorithms—precisely the core technical barriers DJI relies on to stand in global markets.

DJI’s core litigation logic is that the patents in question were all completed within one year after leaving the company by “DJI’s former core R&D personnel,” and that the technical content of the patents highly overlaps with the job tasks and core technologies that the employee worked on and had access to during their tenure at DJI.

More importantly, when applying for some of the patents domestically, InnoView Innovation marked the inventor information as “request not to publish name.” But in the corresponding international patent applications, it listed the real identity. Relevant personnel have been confirmed to have previously participated deeply in R&D of DJI’s core drone projects, and to have掌握 key technical details such as flight control and imaging.

In response, Liu Jingkang, founder and CEO of InnoView Innovation, said that he has carefully checked the patents applied for by the relevant employees during that time. Existing evidence shows they were all ideas generated within InnoView and outcomes of independent innovation. Regarding the allegation of inventor avoidance, Liu Jingkang said that many of InnoView’s patents hide the inventor during domestic applications, and are disclosed during PCT; the reason is that, out of respect for inventors’ foundations, they delay the exposure time of technical personnel lists as much as possible to prevent them from being targeted by headhunters, and that many patent applications also hide non-former-DJI employees.

Liu Jingkang also said that DJI’s technology may fall within InnoView’s patent-protection scope, but InnoView did not proactively sue. For this case, the parties can wait for the court’s normal evidence-collection and investigation procedures.

The direction of this lawsuit is already clear: DJI is not merely seeking ownership of the six patents—it is seeking the technical R&D system and intellectual-property moat that it spent more than a decade building, and is directly targeting InnoView Innovation’s commercial conduct.

In other words, this dispute has evolved from an ordinary legal lawsuit into the key battleground of commercial games between two major players.

02

From Defense to Offense for DJI

Before 2024, DJI and InnoView Innovation were a textbook example of “misaligned development” among Shenzhen tech companies. Both companies focused on the smart imaging segment, but the boundaries of their businesses were clear and their target markets were quite different.

At that time, DJI anchored itself to the consumer drone market—an absolute king in the aerial-imaging field. Its focus was on the global drone market, and it did not treat the handheld imaging niche as a core competitive opponent. Conversely, InnoView Innovation precisely avoided DJI’s strong segment and specialized in the niche and blank panoramic camera space. It focused on segmented scenarios such as outdoor extreme sports, Vlog shooting, panoramic live streaming, and VR content capture. With differentiated panoramic algorithms and ultra-portable product design, it quickly seized the global market and, for many consecutive years, remained number one in the global panoramic camera market.

But by 2025, both companies changed their stance of not disturbing each other’s waters. InnoView Innovation took the initiative to launch an “offensive mode.”

InnoView’s active push mainly concentrated on two directions: first, continuously strengthening its action/ sports camera business, launching multiple high–value-for-money models in an attempt to take market share from DJI and GoPro; second, quietly laying out core technologies such as drone flight control, body-structure design, and aerial-imaging processing, bringing in seasoned R&D personnel from the industry to quickly fill its technical gaps and directly touch DJI’s core technical moat.

Behind this is InnoView, after listing on the STAR Market, urgently needing to find new growth points. But the global panoramic camera market had gradually started to reach its growth ceiling, and there was no new narrative available to build. The company tried to replicate the path of breaking through in panoramic cameras by entering the aerial-imaging segment and building a dual-business pattern of “handheld imaging + drones.”

In response to InnoView’s “offense,” DJI did not initially respond forcefully. It only fully changed its strategy around mid-2025, shifting from passive observation to a comprehensive offensive.

With a strong challenge coming from the panoramic camera and action/sports camera tracks that supported InnoView’s business, it successively launched the Action sports series and the Osmo 360 panoramic camera, officially kicking off the “duel.”

DJI’s logic of counterattack was very clear: since InnoView was trying to cross over and seize its drone market, DJI would directly break InnoView’s main base—using its imaging technologies, supply-chain advantages, and global channel presence developed over years—to crush InnoView’s core business and force the other party to shrink its battlefield.

03

A Fire Starts in InnoView’s Backyard

As a former “exclusive grain silo,” before 2025 InnoView’s market share in the global panoramic camera market stayed at over 70% for a long time, almost monopolizing the entire segment.

In 2025, DJI officially launched its first panoramic camera, Osmo 360, directly targeting InnoView’s flagship model. With ecosystem interlocking from drones, supply-chain cost advantages, and an aggressive pricing strategy (about 1,000 yuan cheaper than InnoView’s equivalent model), it gained a partial advantage within just a few months after its release.

Data from different institutions showed the market landscape changed drastically. According to a report by Frost & Sullivan, based on retail terminal sales, in 2025 Q3 InnoView’s global market share was 75% and DJI’s was 17.1%. According to JiQian Consulting’s calculations based on e-commerce GMV, in the same period DJI’s global market share rose to 43%, while InnoView fell to 49%. It is worth noting that after Frost & Sullivan released its report, it withdrew the figures due to internal data verification, while JiQian’s data focuses on e-commerce channels; differences in statistical methodologies led to different results.

By early 2026, the panoramic camera market had formed a face-off between two dominant players. InnoView, leveraging brand accumulation and niche models (thumb-camera market share over 50%), held roughly 50%–65% share. DJI steadily occupied 17%–45%. InnoView’s once-dominant monopoly situation was completely over—this was the most severe market shock the company had faced since its founding.

The outcome of this 2025 two-line duel was very clear: in the action/sports camera segment, DJI achieved absolute leadership, successfully breaking through InnoView’s defensive lines; in the panoramic camera segment, DJI entered from a standing start, quickly captured a substantial share, and dealt a heavy blow to InnoView’s core base; meanwhile, InnoView managed to hold some panoramic camera share, but in the sports camera segment it could not match DJI and was forced into passive defense—leaving its overall competitive posture lagging in certain areas.

In other words, “a fire started in InnoView’s backyard” may have been beyond the company’s own expectations, and next it would still have to face DJI’s relentless “pursuit.” At a deeper level, the core of this dispute is not just a simple competition for market share between the two companies, but a fundamental conflict between their commercial logics.

InnoView’s logic is “niche breakthroughs + cross-industry expansion.” By relying on advantages accumulated in panoramic cameras, it rapidly crosses into new markets to capture incremental demand and reduce the risk of a single product category. DJI’s logic is “deep technical R&D + full-domain defense.” It does not allow any company to touch its core technologies and markets. Through advantages across the entire industrial chain and intellectual-property enforcement, it suppresses competitors’ cross-industry ambitions.

The market duels in 2025 were a contest at the commercial level. This lawsuit sets the tone at the rule level, and both sides already have no way back. Whether it ends in victory or defeat, the litigation will completely reshape the smart imaging industry landscape. (Produced by Thinking Finance) ■

Image source: Capture Images Network

(This article is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. There are risks in the market; invest cautiously.)

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Responsible editor: Song Yafang