DJI and Insta360 have voluntarily dismissed all four of the patent infringement lawsuits they filed against each other in the Eastern District of Texas. Court filings show both companies submitted notices of voluntary dismissal on June 28, 2026, covering DJI’s cases 2:26-cv-00462 and 2:26-cv-00463 and Insta360’s cases 2:26-cv-00466 and 2:26-cv-00467. The court entered dismissal orders the next day, June 29, without prejudice, meaning either company can refile the same claims later.

No settlement has been announced publicly, and the withdrawal is narrower than it looks. The underlying dispute between the two Shenzhen-based rivals is not over. DJI’s original patent ownership lawsuit against Insta360’s parent company, Arashi Vision, remains active in the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, where it has sat since March 2026. That case, not the Texas filings, is the one that could actually reshape the relationship between the two companies.

The Texas Cases Started on Launch Day

DJI opened the American front of this fight on June 10 and 11, right around the launch of Insta360’s new Luna Ultra handheld gimbal camera, which went on sale in the United States on June 10 at $769.99. As DroneXL covered when the suits were filed, DJI asserted four utility patents and two design patents against the Luna line, which includes both the Luna Ultra and the cheaper Luna Pro, arguing the cameras copy the Osmo Pocket’s control scheme, tracking system, and ornamental design down to the scroll wheel and rotating display. DJI asked the court for a permanent injunction that would have pulled the Luna Ultra and Luna Pro off American shelves entirely, along with damages and a share of Insta360’s profits.

Insta360 did not wait long to respond. On June 12, as DroneXL reported at the time, the company filed its own counterclaims in the same Texas court, asserting five utility patents covering gimbal stabilization, directional control, telemetry overlay, and panoramic video stabilization, which it says show up in DJI’s Osmo Pocket, Ronin, RS, Osmo Mobile, and Osmo 360 lines. Insta360 also filed three invalidity challenges with the China National Intellectual Property Administration, targeting the Chinese counterparts of the patents DJI had just asserted against it in Texas.

What Both Sides Were Actually Fighting Over

DJI’s Texas complaints named six patents in total: US11,009,181, a gimbal control device patent, US11,245,855, covering handheld gimbal shooting control methods, US11,381,751 and US11,539,893, also covering handheld gimbal control methods, and two design patents, D1,072,023 and D1,110,390, covering the ornamental look of a stabilized camera device.

Insta360’s countersuit asserted five patents of its own, covering gimbal stabilization, gimbal directional control, camera smooth stabilization, telemetry overlay, and panoramic video stabilization: US11,388,339 for panoramic video anti-shake, US9,554,045 for constraint-based rotation smoothing, US8,938,161 and US8,908,090 for pointing control of an actively stabilized camera, and US9,154,910 for terminal location tracking. The three Chinese patents Insta360 challenged at CNIPA are ZL201880040270.1, ZL201410179306.8, and ZL201811501687.1, the domestic family members of patents DJI had asserted in the US case.

China Is Where the Actual Precedent Gets Set

DJI’s Shenzhen filing predates the Texas fight by nearly three months. As DroneXL detailed in March, DJI filed a patent ownership lawsuit at the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court over six patents covering drone flight control, structural design, and image processing. The claim rests on a specific piece of Chinese IP law: an invention created within one year of an employee leaving a company, if related to their prior job duties, can legally still belong to the former employer. DJI argues several of Insta360’s patents trace back to former DJI R&D staff. Insta360 founder JK Liu rejected the claim on Weibo the same day it became public, and said his company holds 28 of its own unfiled patents it believes cover DJI products but has chosen not to litigate.

That Shenzhen case is still working through the Chinese court system with no ruling date reported. It matters more than the Texas dismissals because a decision there would set precedent on how far Chinese employers can reach into a departed employee’s later work, a question that touches every hardware company in Shenzhen’s drone and camera cluster, not just these two.

The Market Backdrop Explains the Urgency

According to IDC data covering global shipments of smart handheld cameras, panoramic, action, and gimbal models combined, the category reached 16.7 million units in 2025. DJI led with 10.4 million units and 62.4 percent share. Insta360 followed with 3.4 million units and 20.4 percent share. DJI’s dominance is real, but Insta360 is the fastest-growing name in that data, and it has a structural advantage in the US market right now: DJI’s dual-lens Osmo Pocket 4P still cannot be sold in the United States because DJI remains on the FCC’s Covered List, a designation added in December 2025 that blocks new product authorizations. Insta360 is not subject to that restriction, which is why the Luna Ultra could launch freely in the exact market where DJI wanted an injunction.

DroneXL’s Take

Dropping the Texas cases without a settlement isn’t a truce, it’s a retreat from the weaker battlefield. DJI’s actual goal in June was never really about winning a jury verdict two years from now. It was about getting an injunction fast enough to knock the Luna Ultra off American shelves while it was hot. Once it became clear a preliminary injunction was a long shot and Insta360’s countersuit put five of DJI’s own product lines on the hook, walking away from Texas costs DJI nothing and saves it the discovery bill. The real leverage was always in Shenzhen.

That’s also where I think DJI has the stronger hand. A “service invention” claim about former employees filing patents within a year of leaving is a narrower, more provable argument than “you copied our scroll wheel,” and Chinese courts have historically been receptive to employer claims like this. If Shenzhen rules for DJI, expect it to lean harder on ownership claims against other Shenzhen alumni-founded competitors, not just Insta360.

None of this changes the part of this story that actually bothers me: the reason DJI needed a courtroom to compete with Insta360 in the US at all is that its own dual-lens camera, the Osmo Pocket 4P, is barred from sale here by a national security designation aimed at drones, applied to a device with no rotors and no wings. Insta360 gets to play the challenger in America not on product merits alone, but because Washington cleared its lane for it while DJI’s comparable hardware sits on the sidelines. Watch the Shenzhen docket, not Texas, for where this actually gets decided.

Source: Michael’s Substack (PRIP)

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