News

Almost a year since pro cinema camera maker RED sued Nikon for infringing on its video compression patents, the two companies have agreed to a joint dismissal of the lawsuit “without prejudice.” That effectively means Nikon is permitted to continue offering compressed internal RAW video recording in cameras like the Z9—which gained the data compression tech in a big 2.0 firmware update in April 2022.

There could be lots of reasons behind the so-called Rule 41 dismissal, and we can only speculate what they may be, but evidently neither party had the stomach to go through with the litigation and all the legal expense that would have entailed. Given Nikon’s objections to the veracity of RED’s patents, it seems unlikely that the Japanese company agreed to pay RED for the rights to use them. On the other hand, if RED felt the patents weren’t going to stand up to scrutiny, it might have decided against pursuing the case in order to keep the patents on the books and avoid weakening them.

Either way, it’s good news for filmmakers—especially those with more modest budgets for full-frame mirrorless cameras like the Z9!