DJI Tells Ninth Circuit 25 Unreleased Products Are Now In Regulatory Limbo, With $1.56 Billion At Stake In 2026

DJI filed a sharply worded brief on April 15, 2026 in its Ninth Circuit fight with the FCC, putting specific numbers on the damage for the first time: 14 existing products with voided FCC authorizations (five drones and nine non-drone items), 25 planned 2026 launches blocked from the US market, and a projected $1.56 billion loss this calendar year. The filing is DJI’s opposition to the government’s motion to dismiss, and it reframes the case as a constitutional fight over whether a Bureau inside the FCC can ban an entire foreign industry with no judicial review.

The brief is signed by Travis LeBlanc, a Cooley LLP partner and former FCC enforcement chief, and Elizabeth Prelogar, the 48th Solicitor General of the United States. DroneXL reported on the Prelogar and LeBlanc hirings in February. This April 15 filing is the first major product of that legal team, and it reads like it.

The primary source is the 32-page petitioners’ opposition brief, docketed in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit as Case 26-1029, DktEntry 21.1, filed April 15, 2026.

The 14 blocked and the 25 stuck in limbo

DJI’s filing gives the clearest accounting yet of what US buyers are missing right now and what they won’t see in 2026. The FCC has already set aside equipment authorizations for 14 DJI products: five uncrewed aircraft and nine non-UAS items such as cameras, stabilizers, and accessories. DJI projects a $700 million loss from that set-aside alone. Layer in 25 planned 2026 launches that cannot now receive FCC authorization, and DJI projects another $860 million gone.

That 25-product figure is the part worth lingering on. The filing does not name the products, but based on DJI’s typical annual cadence, 25 launches in 2026 means a Mini successor, a Mavic refresh, a next-generation Neo, Osmo hardware across multiple lines, updated Zenmuse payloads, and enterprise Matrice iterations. None of those products will reach US retail through authorized channels in 2026 if the FCC action holds. American pilots have already felt this: the Avata 360 was the last new DJI product to arrive through normal US retail before the FCC action took hold.

DJI’s legal move: the FCC is running out the clock

DJI’s brief argues the FCC is trying to insulate its decision from any court review. The theory goes like this: the Bureau ban took effect immediately on December 22, 2025, but the FCC now argues DJI cannot sue until the full Commission rules on DJI’s January 21, 2026 reconsideration petition, and the FCC has no deadline to do that.

The filing cites a precedent that should worry anyone watching this timeline. The FCC took nearly three years to resolve a similar reconsideration petition from China Unicom (filed October 2022, denied May 2025) on another Covered List designation. DJI is telling the court, in effect, that the Commission can inflict billions in damage and then sit on the paperwork.

DJI also points to an awkward procedural detail. After DJI filed its Ninth Circuit petition on February 20 and proposed a joint six-month abeyance on February 25, the FCC said nothing substantive for nearly two weeks, then filed a motion to dismiss on March 6. That sequence is in the record now, and it’s unflattering.

The Appointments Clause argument is the sleeper

Buried in the brief is a constitutional argument with implications far beyond drones. DJI contends that if the FCC is right that its Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau staff can ban entire product categories from the US market with no Commission vote and no judicial review, then those Bureau members are exercising the kind of authority the Constitution reserves to properly appointed officers under Article II.

The filing notes that the Bureau Chief appears to have been appointed by FCC Chairman Carr alone, with no record of the full Commission acting as the “Head of Department” required by the Appointments Clause. The brief invokes Lucia v. SEC, the 2018 Supreme Court decision that reshaped how agencies appoint officials who wield real power. This is the kind of argument Prelogar built her Supreme Court reputation on, and the fact that it’s in the brief at this early procedural stage is a tell about how DJI plans to litigate this if it reaches the merits.

DJI’s ask: a six-month pause, not a merits ruling

DJI is not asking the Ninth Circuit to rule on the merits right now. Its request is narrower and more patient: deny the FCC’s motion to dismiss, hold the case in abeyance for six months, and require the parties to file a status report in November 2026. The logic is that oppositions to DJI’s FCC reconsideration petition were due April 6 and replies May 11, so the full Commission could act during the abeyance. If the Commission rules, the Ninth Circuit case becomes moot. If it doesn’t, DJI can ask to resume briefing.

The brief also includes an observation that US national security agencies never specifically investigated DJI products before the Bureau acted. The FCC’s December 22 public notice relied on an interagency “purported national security assessment” issued the day before, and DJI points out that assessment did not mention DJI or analyze any DJI products. The Pentagon’s April filing at the FCC cited classified intelligence to oppose DJI’s reconsideration petition, but that came months after the ban took effect.

US drone buyers face a frozen 2026 pipeline

Nothing changes today. Every DJI drone that received FCC authorization before December 22, 2025 remains legal to import, sell, and fly. The Mini 4 Pro, Mini 5 Pro, Mavic 4 Pro, Air 3S, Matrice lineup, and every Osmo device already on shelves are not affected by this filing.

What the filing does clarify is the product pipeline. Five new drone models and nine non-drone products are already blocked, and 25 more 2026 launches are stuck. Unless the Ninth Circuit moves or the FCC reverses itself on reconsideration, US buyers should not expect any new DJI hardware to appear through authorized retail channels in 2026. Gray-market imports and the FCC’s October 2025 retroactive authority are separate problems we’ve covered at length.

DroneXL’s Take

The $1.56 billion number is grabbing headlines, but the lawyering is the real story in this brief. DJI hired the former US Solicitor General and a former FCC enforcement chief, and the very first thing that team produces is a filing that reframes the FCC’s case as a constitutional separation-of-powers problem. That’s not accidental. When I first reported DJI’s December 23, 2025 response calling the ban “disappointing” and citing protectionism, the tone was commercial. This filing is legal warfare.

The Appointments Clause argument is what I’d watch. If DJI can get the Ninth Circuit to take seriously the idea that Bureau staff cannot unilaterally ban industries from the US market, the implications ripple well beyond drones, into every Covered List designation the FCC has ever made. That includes Huawei, ZTE, Hikvision, and the Kaspersky listing. No court has cleanly addressed that question, and Prelogar knows it.

The FCC’s own behavior in this filing is worth noting. Two weeks of silence followed by a surprise motion to dismiss is not how an agency confident in its legal position acts. It’s how an agency that wants to delay judicial review acts. The China Unicom precedent DJI cites, a reconsideration petition that took almost three years to resolve, is almost certainly where the FCC would like this to end up.

My read: the Ninth Circuit will grant some version of DJI’s abeyance request by late summer 2026, and the FCC will then take its time on reconsideration. The real fight, including the Appointments Clause challenge, lands in merits briefing sometime in 2027. By then US buyers will have gone through an entire product cycle without a single new authorized DJI drone, and the market will have reshaped itself around that absence. That reshaping is already visible in the four non-Chinese drones the FCC has so far exempted. None of them are meaningful competition for a Mavic or a Matrice. The gap is real, and it’s widening.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.