Insta360 Countersues DJI as Luna Ultra Patent Fight Moves to US Courts

Insta360 has filed two countersuits against DJI in the United States, escalating a dispute that began when DJI sued over the new Luna Ultra handheld camera. According to the report, DJI filed its cases on June 10, 2026, the same day Insta360 launched the Luna Ultra, and is seeking a permanent injunction that could block the product from the US market. Insta360’s response claims DJI infringes patents tied to gimbal stabilization, directional gimbal control, smooth camera stabilization, telemetry overlays, and panoramic video stabilization.

For mobile creators, this is more than a fight between two camera companies. It touches the core technology behind pocket gimbal cameras, phone-controlled stabilizers, action cameras, and 360-degree systems that many people use alongside iPhones, Android phones, tablets, and desktop editing apps. These products are not phones, but they increasingly behave like mobile ecosystem accessories: they rely on companion apps, firmware updates, cloud sharing, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi control, and editing workflows that can keep users inside one brand’s toolkit.

Insta360 says the DJI products at issue include the Osmo Pocket series, Ronin/RS stabilizers, Osmo Mobile gimbals, and Osmo 360. DJI’s broader product lines can be explored through its official Osmo and Ronin pages, while Insta360’s camera lineup is listed on the official Insta360 site. The Luna Ultra sits right in the middle of that overlap: a compact stabilized camera meant for solo creators who want phone-adjacent convenience without relying entirely on a phone camera.

The Luna Ultra is priced at about $770, according to the report, and Insta360 says it saw strong early demand in North America, including a first-day top-seller ranking in Amazon’s US camcorder category. That matters because DJI has long been the default name in small gimbal cameras, especially through the Osmo Pocket family. Insta360 has been stronger in action cameras, 360-degree capture, reframing tools, and phone-connected creator accessories. Luna Ultra is the company’s clearest push into DJI’s compact stabilized camera space.

The technical dispute centers on how these small cameras keep footage usable. A gimbal is not just a motorized handle. It is a real-time stabilization system that reads motion from sensors, predicts unwanted shake, drives tiny motors, and keeps the lens pointed where the user expects. Good stabilization has to feel invisible. If the camera overcorrects, footage looks floaty. If it reacts too slowly, footsteps and hand movement show up as jitter. If it fights the user’s intended pan, the camera feels disconnected from the hand.

That is where patents around gimbal directional control and smooth stabilization can become valuable. Directional control covers how the camera interprets user intent, such as following a face, staying level while walking, or smoothly turning toward a subject. Smooth stabilization covers the math and control behavior that turns raw motion data into usable footage. In small creator cameras, the hardware is tiny, the battery is limited, and the processor has to handle stabilization while recording high-resolution video. The engineering challenge is to make all of that happen without visible delay, heat problems, or unpredictable movement.

360-degree stabilization adds another layer. A normal camera stabilizes one frame, but a 360-degree camera captures a sphere. The software can later choose where the viewer looks, which means the system has to understand rotation, horizon leveling, and reframing after capture. That is why panoramic video stabilization patents can be especially sensitive for companies like Insta360. The brand built much of its identity around shooting first and framing later, a workflow that turns a 360 camera into a flexible mobile production tool. DJI moving deeper into 360 cameras would place both companies in direct technical and commercial contact.

Telemetry overlays are another practical piece of the dispute. These are the speed, route, altitude, direction, or other data layers that appear over video, often pulled from GPS, sensors, phones, or connected accessories. For action camera users, telemetry can turn a clip into a richer record of a bike ride, car run, ski session, or drone-adjacent shot. The feature depends on clean synchronization between camera footage and sensor data, plus mobile software that can render the overlay in an understandable way.

The OS angle is indirect but still relevant. Neither company announced a new phone operating system version as part of this legal fight, and the report does not list camera firmware versions, iOS app versions, Android app versions, or desktop app builds. Still, buyers should care about software support. Cameras like Luna Ultra, Osmo Pocket models, Osmo Mobile gimbals, and Insta360’s 360 cameras depend heavily on companion apps for setup, live preview, editing, subject tracking, export formats, firmware updates, and cloud or social sharing. A camera can have excellent optics and still feel compromised if its app lags behind current iOS and Android releases.

That is where ecosystem lock-in becomes real. If you buy into DJI, you may benefit from a connected family of gimbals, microphones, drones, action cameras, and editing tools. If you buy into Insta360, you get a creator workflow built around reframing, AI tracking, 360 capture, mobile editing, and accessories shaped for action and travel footage. Both approaches can be useful, but they can also make switching harder. Mounts, batteries, microphones, file formats, color profiles, mobile templates, desktop projects, and learned editing habits all become part of the purchase.

The Luna Ultra dispute also shows how quickly product categories are blending. A few years ago, phone cameras, action cameras, 360 cameras, and gimbal cameras felt more separate. Now they compete for the same creator bag. A user might choose between filming with an iPhone on a gimbal, a DJI Pocket-style camera, an Insta360 action camera, or a 360 camera that reframes into a vertical clip later. The winning device is often the one that is fastest to start, easiest to stabilize, simplest to edit on a phone, and good enough in low light.

That puts pressure on model specs. Sensor size, lens choice, codec support, color profiles, internal storage, battery life, touchscreen design, wireless control range, and AI tracking are not spec-sheet trivia. They decide whether a camera works for a real shoot. A larger sensor can improve low-light capture and dynamic range, but it may require more power and a larger body. A detachable screen can help solo creators frame themselves, but it adds another battery and connection point. Higher video resolutions such as 8K can help with cropping and reframing, but they increase heat, storage demands, and editing requirements on phones and laptops.

For consumers, the immediate question is not who wins the patent argument. It is whether Luna Ultra remains available in the US, whether DJI faces pressure over its own product lines, and whether either company changes features, import plans, or software behavior while the cases move through court. Patent lawsuits can end in licensing agreements, product modifications, sales restrictions, or quiet settlements. A requested injunction is the most aggressive outcome because it targets availability, not just money.

Insta360’s public position is that Luna Ultra came from years of internal R&D, with development beginning in 2020 and earlier products such as the ONE R, Link webcams, and Flow gimbals shaping the design direction. DJI’s position, based on its original lawsuits, is that Luna Ultra is too close to its Osmo Pocket direction. Those are very different narratives: one frames Luna Ultra as a natural extension of Insta360’s work, the other as an infringement threat to DJI’s camera roadmap.

For now, the practical advice is simple. Anyone considering Luna Ultra should watch US availability closely, keep receipts, and pay attention to firmware and app update commitments. Anyone comparing it with DJI’s Osmo products should think beyond headline specs and ask which workflow fits better: DJI’s stabilizer-first creator system or Insta360’s reframing-heavy, action-camera-informed ecosystem. The court fight may take time, but the market signal is already clear. Compact stabilized cameras are becoming important enough that the biggest players are willing to fight over the details.