DJI Sues Insta360! Liu Jingkang: This Competition is Common Among Tech Companies

(Source: 21Style)

Text | Wu Jianan, Lei Ruoxin

Editor | Sun Chaoyi, Zhu Yimin, Gao Mengyang

According to the Economic Information Daily, recently, Shenzhen DJI Innovation Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as “DJI”) officially filed a lawsuit against Yingstone Innovation in the Intermediate People’s Court of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, involving six patent ownership disputes, with several former core R&D personnel of DJI accused of participating.

The court has now officially filed the case.

It is reported that this is DJI’s first patent ownership dispute filed domestically. DJI alleges that the patents involved in the case mainly focus on key technologies such as drone flight control, structural design, and image processing. According to the lawsuit, DJI pointed out that the patents in question were inventions made within one year after former employees left, and these inventions are closely related to their work tasks at DJI.

In response to DJI’s lawsuit against Yingstone Innovation for patent infringement, Yingstone Innovation founder Liu Jingkang responded on social media that day, “GoPro and DJI suing us is understandable—big companies are eager to capture market share. Last year, a rough estimate shows that they also fall within the scope of our 11 hardware/structural patents, 8 software method patents, 6 control method patents, and 3 accessory patents. But we haven’t initiated any lawsuits ourselves.”

Liu Jingkang explained that as a small company with limited resources, the company prioritizes R&D over legal battles, using differentiation to expand the market and share, providing consumers with more diverse options. “Over the past year, while the giants engaged in price wars, we continued to innovate through differentiation, and the entire market grew by over 80%. New players are grabbing market share, but their sales are also increasing.”

(Founder of Yingstone Innovation, Liu Jingkang, responds on social media)

It is understood that Yingstone’s performance in the fourth quarter of last year experienced its fastest growth and highest revenue in recent years. “When we were sued, we spent money—over 10 million USD—to win the GoPro case overseas. We approach this situation with the same mindset,” Liu Jingkang said.

Since the second half of last year, DJI and Yingstone have clashed over market, pricing, and supply chain issues. On one hand, Yingstone entered the drone field, launching a consumer drone brand “Yingling Antigravity” co-created with third parties, penetrating DJI’s core business areas. Meanwhile, DJI also officially entered the panoramic camera market with its first panoramic camera, Osmo 360, moving into the opponent’s territory.

On the other hand, in the price war, DJI launched large-scale price reductions in October last year, causing dissatisfaction among some consumers; Yingstone responded by offering a 100 RMB no-threshold voucher to recent DJI product buyers as a marketing counterattack.

Additionally, their rivalry extended to the supply chain. According to reports from 21st Century Business Herald, during the development of the drone project, some suppliers cut ties with Yingstone due to signing exclusive agreements with DJI or being verbally pressured. This forced Yingstone to urgently switch to backup suppliers and rebuild its supply chain system.

This lawsuit signifies that the confrontation between the two has begun to involve intellectual property rights.

Media reports indicate that insiders revealed that in two patents related to drone flight control and structural design, Yingstone Innovation’s application documents in China listed some inventors as “requesting non-disclosure of names.” However, in the corresponding international patent applications, all inventors’ real names were listed. The individuals whose names were not disclosed are former core R&D personnel of DJI, who deeply participated in key drone technology development during their employment.

Liu Jingkang stated that DJI’s claim is that patent ownership of inventions made by employees within one year of leaving should belong to DJI. However, after careful investigation, the patents involved were found to be ideas and independent innovations generated within Yingstone during that period.

“If DJI’s motivation is as they say, there’s no need for us to apply for patents using these inventors’ names,” Liu Jingkang said. Regarding the issue of inventors being concealed to avoid accusations, many of Yingstone’s patents are filed domestically with hidden inventors, and only in PCT applications are the inventors disclosed. This is to respect the inventors while delaying the exposure of the technical team’s identities and avoiding headhunting. This system was designed for that purpose. Many of Yingstone’s patent applications also hide the names of former DJI employees.

Previously, Yingstone founder Liu Jingkang publicly expressed respect for DJI multiple times, but the actual competition has become more direct.