Red sues Nikon over alleged video compression patent infringement

Camera brand Red.com LLC has filed a lawsuit against Nikon for the alleged use of a proprietary video compression technology. Nikon has allegedly infringed several patents since firmware update 2.0 for the Z9 camera.

Red expects royalties from Nikon for use of seven different patents, according to the regarding court documents† Most parts of the seven patents Red mentions describe “a video camera that can be configured to highly compress video data in a way without visual disadvantages.” According to the accuser, Nikon purposely uses shielded technologies and should have known that this was under Red’s property.

For now, only the already released Nikon Z9 would use the alleged proprietary technologies; after the firmware update, the still camera can save video files with a resolution of 8.3K in Nikon’s proprietary N-RAW format at 60 frames per second.

Although Nikon presents it as a proprietary format, the technology is based on intoPIX’s raw codec TicoRAW. Nikon and intoPIX have partnered since the end of 2021. It is not clear why Red is not taking legal action against that company, but it is against competitor Nikon.