RED's Compressed RAW Patent Invalidated by Japanese Court

Japan's Intellectual Property High Court has upheld the invalidation of RED's compressed RAW video patent, ruling its core claims lacked an inventive step. The patent covers visually lossless compressed RAW recording inside a camera and has been held by Nikon since its 2024 RED acquisition. Panasonic filed the challenge; Nikon lost defending a patent it had previously attacked in court before buying RED. The ruling applies in Japan only, but the same patent family forced Kinefinity to pull CinemaDNG, pushed Blackmagic to develop BRAW, and kept ProRes RAW off the DJI Ronin 4D for years.