Last week we reported that Autel Robotics received a favorable patent ruling against rival drone maker DJI. The dispute revolves primarily around intelligent operations such as obstacle avoidance, use of rotor blades, and batteries that clamp onto the drones. Affected models were identified as the Mavic 2, Mavic Pro/Platinum, Mavic Air, and Spark drones.
Of the drones in dispute, the Mavic Pro/Platinum, Mavic Air and Spark are no longer in production.
Adam Lisberg, DJI’s Corporate Communication Director for North America, sent us a blog post from DJI’s lawyers offering a smoothed take on impact to DJI sales in North America.
“DJI’s sales in the U.S., therefore, will not be affected by Autel’s claims.“
Looking at the Autel patent win in a vacuum you could be forgiven for assuming there would be some dire impact on DJI.
In the blog post, Finnegan’s lawyers dissect the ruling into simple chunks that clearly explains why the patent ruling may end up being a ‘non-event’ for DJI.
The Chief Administrative Law Judge (CALJ) issued a favorable initial determination (ID) for DJI that found that the ‘174 patent claims “were not infringed, were not praticed by any domestic industry product, were anticipated or rendered obvious by prior art, and were directed to an abstract idea and therefore invalid uner 35 U.S.C. § 101.”
The CALJ also found that many of the DJI products did not infringe the ‘184 patent claims, and that the ‘013 patent claims were invalid on multiple grounds.
At the same time as the CALJ was making his ID, DJI was also having “unqualified succes” at the Patent Trial and Appeals Board which declared that all three patents were unpatentable.
The International Trade Commission is now deciding whether to review the CALJ’s ID. According to Finnegan’s “Ultimately the Commission may decide that Autel deserves no remedy at all, but at a minimu, the Commission is unlikely enforce any exclusino or cease-and-desist order based on the three invalid patents.”
The bottom line, according to the legal team that managed DJI’s defense, is that “DJI’s sales in the U.S….will not be affected by Autel’s claims.”
You can read the entire Finnegan blog post here.
